The Conversation ~ Where Talk IS Action

We're reading and discussing...

2012-02-16T20:08:00.000-08:00

...this book that started it all. It was this book that began the conversation that became The Conversation. It's a short but very powerful book that has incredible relevance to our present day. If you think we are living in a post-racial America (or even if you're sure we're not) this book will re-inspire you and re-invigorate your your thinking about how to "do" social change. Come join The Conversation!

MLK Event Rescheduled

2012-01-15T12:47:00.001-08:00

The previously canceled MLK Redeeming the Prophetic Vision event has been rescheduled for Feb. 19th as part of our celebration of Black History Month. Please RSVP at The Conversation facebook page by clicking on the following link: http://www.facebook.com/TalkandAction.

SAVE THE DATE!

2011-11-27T15:57:00.000-08:00

The 6th Annual "Redeeming the Prophetic Vision" MLK Interfaith Service

Sunday, January 15, 2012
2:30-4:30PM
Urban Grace Church
902 Market St.
Tacoma, WA

This event has been growing for 6 years now and brings together the best and most committed in our community. Come be reinvigorated and re-inspired to work for justice and peace in our lifetime.

There will be a reception with music and opportunities for networking with social justice organizations immediately following the program.

Check out this Tacoma Weekly article about last year's event

The Warmth of Other Suns

2011-02-17T22:19:00.000-08:00

We begin reading and discussing this book on Sunday March 13. Join us from noon to 2pm each week for food, coffee/tea and conversation.

5th Annual "Redeeming the Prophetic Vision" MLK Event

2011-01-09T20:35:00.000-08:00

Please join The Conversation for Redeeming the Prophetic Vision Ecumenical Service
Celebrating the Life & Work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Sun, Jan. 16, 2011, 2:30-4:30pm (Social Hour 4:30-5:30)
Urban Grace, 902 Market Street, Tacoma

Click on image for a larger view.

Click under "events" on left for details

"The New Jim Crow - Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness"

2010-12-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

We're discussing this book. Come join us. For a taste of what the author, Michelle Alexander, is asserting in this book, check out this interview with Sasha Lillie on "Against the Grain"

"Under the Circumstances"

2010-10-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

The Conversation is going to see this play by our own C. Rosalind Bell. Join us.

Where: Tacoma Little Theater
When: 2pm on Sunday, October 10

Check out the TNT review here, "No tiptoeing around race discussion in Tacoma Little Theater play."

"The Slave Ship - A Human History"

2010-05-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

We're discussing this book. Join us.

“Picking Cotton: Our Story of Injustice & Redemption”

2010-02-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

A shocking crime. A devastating miscarriage of justice. One man’s fight for truth. One woman’s struggle to recover. Two lives forever connected.

Date:	Thursday, March 4, 2010
Time:	Presented twice at 10am and 6pm
Location:	The Evergreen State College-Tacoma Campus
Street:	1210 6th Ave.
City/Town:	Tacoma, WA

Author's of the book "Picking Cotton" Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino visit Evergreen-Tacoma Campus. Discussion will revolve around the problem of mis-identification that leads to convictions of innocent people. This is an incredible story.

Synopsis:

Jennifer Thompson was raped at knifepoint by a man who broke into her apartment while she slept. She was able to escape, and eventually positively identified Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald insisted that she was mistaken-- but Jennifer's positive identification was the compelling evidence that put him behind bars. After eleven years, Ronald was allowed to take a DNA
test that proved his innocence. He was released, after serving more than a decade in prison for a crime he never committed.

Two years later, Jennifer and Ronald met face to face-- and forged an unlikely friendship that changed both of their lives.

In their own words, Jennifer and Ronald unfold the harrowing details of their tragedy, and challenge our ideas of memory and judgment while demonstrating the profound nature of human grace and the healing power of forgiveness. -- St. Martin's Press

4th Annual "Redeeming the Prophetic Vision" Martin Luther King Jr.

2010-01-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

Conversation Schedule

2009-11-08T20:25:00.000-08:00

See our Facebook page, under Notes, for current schedule.

The Conversation is now on Facebook!

2009-11-06T19:43:00.000-08:00

Become a fan! Post comments, events, etc. Join the conversation! Just see the Fan Box on the left.

Conversation Recap for May 3, 2009

2009-05-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

We welcomed two new participants on a sunny morning.

Sid shared the story. We discussed our involvement with the public schools, and were asked to consider: how will we look back and describe what we did, knowing what we do?

We were visited by Chris Van Vechten, who is considering a run at the Tacoma School Board next year. He described his experience in public schools, a difficult time that he was able to turn around (three cheers for arts programs in the schools). He graduated from University of Puget Sound. [For some family background, he referred us to a book about his grandfather, Remember Me To Harlem,” ed. by Emily Bernard, from Knopf.]

One particular issue he is interested in in what we define as more important or essential subjects in class. He is also interested in looking at developing a school that focuses on preparation for trades, perhaps on a model like SOTA or SAMI.

He has been campaigning for about a month. When he asks people what needs to be done in their schools today, he hears a variety of things—which means a ‘one size fits all’ approach to improvement is a bad idea. He believes that schools at present very poorly serve students. One broad concept: schools need to be better connected to real life.

We had a broad discussion of the purposes of public education. Some participants shared elements of an answer, and offered the advice that the words need to be said (describing the real outcomes of the present school system), and that plenty of people won’t like it.

One participant compared the Tacoma public utility board’s experience in the drought at the close of the last century. It was an opportunity to be influential on the board beyond the formal rules and procedures. The school board might be a place to think about this—the work of getting others to change the way they see their basic responsibilities and resources is long and hard.

In discussing the achievement gap, several participants’ questions and suggestions encouraged a more specific, experience-based account of what can be done to make a difference. One participant suggested that someone (how about one of us) assemble a list of what we know can be done right now about the achievement gap.

And there was a generous sharing of humorous observations.

The assembled participants offered some broad recommendations about focusing a campaign. The advice from this group has to include the idea that one person can make a big difference. Frame the campaign—this whole thing has to change, and it starts with me.

Keith have a presentation about food security—he used the term “food dictatorship,” by which he means the commercial control of plant genetics. Commercial organizations have been able to patent organisms since the landmark Supreme Court in 1980, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, a 5-4 decision.

He showed us a video on Youtube, Frankenfoods. See it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG8Y-_p8XSg.

This raises some very interesting questions about the ownership of life.

Keith focused on the idea that the justice issues of food security can be addressed by going down another path—dealing politically with distribution issues. The trend right now is to develop food via patented products, which require farmers to enter into feed production of a particular design—they have to earn or borrow a certain amount of money to buy the patented foods, the fertilizers they need, and so on. The model is that property rights extend to all facets of the food cycle, and that all is for sale.

Anyone interested in the rules that apply to use of the “organic” label on your food, see the agriculture department web page on the issue: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateA&navID=NationalOrganicProgram&leftNav=NationalOrganicProgram&page=NOPNationalOrganicProgramHome&acct=nop

A good example of an interest group that keeps track of these questions (such as the link between genetically modified organisms and organic food), and has a rich website, is http://www.organicconsumers.org/. Their argument about a moratorium on GMO’s is at http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/gefacts.pdf.

There are alternatives to the current model of developing and selling food. Those interested in this may want to check Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy, and Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Both are well-written, carefully argued, and available in paperback. Each include some practical answers to the question, What Can I Do About It? Several participants raised broad issues that, they said, would be good to connect with practical steps we can take.

One participant noted the seedsavers movement. See www.seedsavers.org.

People interested in the story of the Canadian farmer and Monsanto, you can read details at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto_Canada_Inc._v._Schmeiser

A recommendation: Stolen Harvest, by Vandana Shiva, and Water Wars, by the same author, are very good on these topics in a more global setting. See also Monocultures Of The Mind.

• Steve & Kristi play at Rhapsody in Bloom, this coming Wednesday, the 6th.
• On the 9th, a StopLoss Event, Coffee Strong Coffee House. All day event.
• Thursday, June 11, is the night of that Little Theater public event involving some members of the Conversation, save the date.
• Conversation meets May 17, at rehearsal hall of Broadway Theater.

Conversation Recap for April 5, 2009

2009-04-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

Today looks to be gorgeous outside, it is supposed to get up to 65f.

We started with a story from Candace. The question and answer period was largely about personal things we don’t share on the blog. As a group, the Conversation usually looks for ways to support its participants.

Today Candace gave us a presentation on Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or EDS, a connective tissue disorder. In EDS the body can not make collagen and put it in the right place correctly. Collagen does a lot of things in the body—it helps make skin supple, it makes blood vessel walls flexible, it makes ligaments and muscles strong, it helps make the membranes on organs strong, and other things. Any and all of these can can affect EDS patients, in degrees ranging from annoying skin problems, to lots of pain, to knees and hips popping out of joint, to fatal organ failures. There is no simple test for EDS. Biopsies to analyze collagen, classification through symptoms, and genetic testing are all used to understand particular patients’ condition (there are eight specific genetic markers for EDS). Accordingly, EDS is underdiagnosed in the population (probably by a factor of ten or more), and if often wrongly diagnosed and treated. And, there isn’t much doctors can do beside “support” patients—orthotics in the shoes, pain relievers, and so on. There is no cure.

You can read more about EDS at the EDS foundation, at http://www.ednf.org/, or at the EDS Network Cares people, at http://www.ehlersdanlosnetwork.org/. They have a particularly detailed description of the variants of the disease at http://www.ehlersdanlosnetwork.org/typesofehlersdanlos.html.

One very difficult family issue with EDS is that the easy bruising is often, according to parents of EDS children, mistaken by school officials as signs of child abuse. So parents have to cope with the Child Protective Services calls, the investigations at school, and more. Similarly, when EDS children are seen by people in the emergency medical system, they are likely to trigger an investigation into child abuse. If children are taken during such investigations and placed into the foster care system, they are very unlikely to be place in households that are knowledgeable about dealing with EDS.

We also had a discussion about how to respond to the situation of a participant in need, and we don’t put that on the blog.

Conversation Recap for March 22, 2009

2009-03-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

We welcomed Dexter back, and had lots of good food for breakfast.

Dexter told us about a recent meeting of the Washington Alliance of Black School Educators (see here), and of his research in Jamaica. Some funny stories there that best stay with the group.

This led to some observations on local history. It is rare that the stories of people get recorded, such as the accounts of the oldest people in communities who can fill in the details of what life was like—things that don’t get into the newspapers.

The stories also led to a brief overview of Rastafarian communities in Jamaica. Rastafarians were, in the early days, among the few who would question royalty, investigate blackness, and attempt to construct an appropriate life. They started several communes in the area Dexter visited, and they lived on the beach, fished, did their carpentry, read and talked about Scripture, and lived as men of peace in the town he grew up in. If people want to learn more they can look up Leonard Howell, whose biography is entitled “The First Rasta.” So far no one has published anything about the commune is his particular town. One of the reasons it was not noted much in print was the peaceful lifestyle that fit right in, were not raided by the police, and did not directly confront the authorities (for example, no back-to-Africa doctrine, no veneration of Haile Selassie, no extensive use of ganja, and so on).

Today’s central topic is to look at the experiences of several participants, Growing Up in Which America. (The concept of which America does not refer to North/Central/South Americas, but to the ways the color line divides the United States.)

One participant related how during the first grade (approximately), a woman she was staying with attempted to instruct her in racist ideas. She brought up some of the vocabulary with her mother, who explained that some people were racist. When school busing started in her school district, the white kids continued to go to the local school and the black kids went somewhere else. Another time she was being teased on the playground for being white, and when she got home her mother explained the historical background that helped her see how these attitudes came about. Her mother purposefully tried to organize her social life so that she would have more black friends.

Another participant described the topic today as looking at growing up here that is different from people who are exposed to multiple languages, cultures, and so on. In the USA there is an ideal that isn’t how a lot of people actually live.

Growing up in the USA, one will be exposed to lots of names that mark one as not the ideal. He shared some of the names that mark people, your reporter won’t put them here. Suffice to say we have a well-developed vocabulary for sorting people with respect to the ideal—they all mean “lesser,” in some way.

These names mark us, and the experience of growing up around this constant sorting marks us. What interests him now is constructing a community that is more caring, and more just.

Another participant started by describing a class she is teaching in which she has students write about and discuss their encounters with the color line. That will be more fully developed in a subsequent meeting of the Conversation.

In her own life, she remembers some incidents that happened before she had a vocabulary to process color as a defining feature. On one drive through a poorer neighborhood, and asking about the dilapidated houses. Her parents said that these people don’t take care of their property. She asked why not. There was a long pause, and he said it was because the people who owned the houses do not live there, and it is they who don’t take care of them. She had the sense her dad was doing something

In another memory, an African American woman who came to do housework was referred to by her first name. Weird, her parents referred to all other adults by first and last names. When asked, her mother said, yes she does have a last name, and gave it. She had a sense to not pursue this any further.

In still another memory, a prominent person in the neighborhood, called The Colonel, came over and said something that was somehow portentious. She thought it might be that the river was flooding. When asked, her parents said, no, the concern was that a “Negro” family might be moving into the neighborhood. When asked why that was a problem, her dad said they don’t take care of their property. Oh, she responded, like the (name of family) down the street. That family, of course, was white. Her dad went quiet at that point.

What seems to unify the stories—These are all examples of where people know the myth that they are projecting, and when asked to account for it in careful terms, show they are aware of the contradictions.

An interesting discussion followed these reports of early memories. Many of the accounts were of their own early memories.

One participant told a story of how we cherish the things we now believe. We seem to believe that what is absurd must not be true.

One participant noted it would be nice to have some clear analysis of how white people become split growing up with the self-deception.
As one participant noted, there are quite a few pieces on that…. we should assemble a bibliography.

One participant noted a Native American concept called “acculture.” One has to learn to be mainstream. It is a normal topic. “Say what you want, but we are still prisoners of war.” A good novel: “The Indians Won,” by Martin Cruz Smith, 1981.

One participant noted that kids quickly learn things in a culture of hate. Kids pick up who is hated, and use this knowledge to construct a self. This makes the family something strange—it puts kids on notice that there are dangers here, and that they to can be hated.

One participant noted that he came to North America at the age of 15, and he found that he could walk where he wanted to and do what he wanted to do. It was some time later that he realized the house was subdivided, and that the people there were living differently from others. On the whole he grew up without hearing a lot of disparaging remarks. There was plenty of discrimination in Canada, but the stark divisions described by those of us who grew up in the US were not part of his life. Interesting border. One participant suspected there is, indeed, a big dose of such divisions in Canada, although they may be more obviously mapped in the Native/immigrant line, or the French/English line. In the discussion, it came out there are real differences among the regions in Canada.

Several people noted the “schizophrenic” qualities of the ways race and racism get expressed, as noted above in the stories about myths and absurdities.

One participant shared a couple of stories from childhood. He thought the city he grew up in was a black city. He would see white people downtown, and here and there, but there was a clear association between poverty and being black. And, of course, there where white people on TV. A white teacher at school was nice.

One participant noted The Wire. Most people here have never seen it. Those of us who have said the acting, the writing, the whole thing, is perhaps the best thing we have every seen on television. See the website here.

One participant described The Wire as unfortunately focused on the blacks-as-drug-users. As a kid he did not experience much in the way of white racism, he got all he needed from TV. The depictions of black people are generally pathological. Another participant suggested that the show does get at the complexities—the complicity of the many institutions that contribute to the decay of US cities.

Why was The Sopranos such a huge cultural event, and The Wire was not? That is perhaps something we can do in conjunction with Evergreen.

One participant related discussions about growing up in Tacoma. An early exposure to logic can make a big difference in a life. Parents play a huge role in encouraging kids to make sense of things we see AND things we feel.

One participant suggested that moving towards something else, to be building that more just, more caring society, should be on our minds.

Conversation Recap for March 1, 2009

2009-03-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

We welcomed two new participants today, and welcomed back some folks we had not seen in a while.

Today we heard a part of Sid’s story.

Part of the story focused on teaching about the current wars, and

Thursday at 10am, at Pierce College’s Puyallup campus, James Yee will speak and show a slide show. He was a captain in the Army, a muslim chaplain who was arrested and harshly treated in response to his criticisms of our handling of prisoners. He was actually charged with sedition and spying. Charges against him were eventually dropped

Cara Bilodeau, Pierce County’s organizer for Stand For Children, visited today. You can check the Tacoma website of Stand For Children.

We talked about education and children’s issues. Some examples of things we are concerned about: Tacoma’s loss of 1,000 students per year, the achievement gap, high dropout rates, the quality of education students are acquiring—and a fairly widespread perception it is declining, unacceptably so. This is connected to accountability standards. Several mentioned concern with the the focus on testing and its effects on what happens in classrooms. Upside down priorities—an emphasis in Tacoma public schools on “the house,” the physical facilities, and too little on what does on in the rooms with students. Not all students are placed on the path to college, and selection criteria are worth a close look. Pressures on budgets seem to lead to fewer programs in art, music, and physical education.

We discussed the March 10 school bond election, and we have an interesting example of one path to accountability. We read in the News Tribune that “The Tacoma Chapter of the NAACP and the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance each voted this week to oppose the measure on the mail-only March 10 ballot.”

Yet this model of accountability is not the same as looking carefully at the purpose for which we run a public education system, and how well we fulfill this purpose.

We approached this from several ways, and came to a single answer: we need to have candidates who will willingly share information about the priorities in education, will be responsive to these education needs, and who will actually lead to fulfill these priorities. This Fall two School Board members’ terms are over. There are opportunities to find a couple of new leaders. Stand For Children will be actively involved in this, and they invite us to be active around this upcoming election.

We discussed the state’s Joint Task Force on Basic Education Finance, whose final report you can read here. It was just published in January, 2009, and recommends several reforms in state education policy. One of the more controversial elements is a tougher path to teacher tenure, which would take longer and be more tightly focused on performance of students.

Their proposed new definition of basic education is:

Students must have the opportunity to learn the skills to:

(i) Read with comprehension, write effectively, and communicate successfully in a variety of ways and settings and with a variety of audiences;
(ii) Know and apply the core concepts and principles of mathematics; social, physical, and life sciences; civics and history, including different cultures and participation in representative government; geography; arts; and health and fitness;
(iii) Think analytically, logically, and creatively, and to integrate different experiences and knowledge to form reasoned judgments and solve problems; and
(iv) Understand the importance of work and finance and how performance, effort, and decisions directly affect future career and educational opportunities.

The Full Funding Coalition, (check them out here) made up of the Washington Education Association, the school superintendents’ association, and other professional organizations, published their own report, which you can see here.

The Full Funding Coalition has so far been successful in deflecting the Task Force recommendations. It does not hurt their cause that the estimates of the cost of funding Task Force recommendations are probably about 68% increase in the State funding for basic education—an extra one and a half billion dollars in a year when the state legislature is trying to find eight billion dollars to cut. Their approach is largely to identify possible sources of new funding for education.

At several points we went back to that idea of clarifying the purpose of basic education. Neither the Task Force nor the Full Funding Coalition address the issue squarely. For example, Conversation members might recall the HB2722 advisory committee, and its focus on a plan to address the achievement gap, made some different recommendations about how to handle education. You can read their final report, issued in December 2008, here.

Conversation participants are urged to contact their legislators this week, as the Washington Legislature is deciding over the next week or two what is to be done this year about education.

AND, we celebrated the birthday of our own TacomaLaurie. Happy Birthday, from all of us.

Conversation Recap for February 22, 2009

2009-03-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

We welcomed a new participant today. This prompted a brief reprise of Conversation ideas and dreams, such as the need for the News Tribune to have a social justice column. (It doesn’t have one now.)

Today we heard Keith (S.) story. The Mexico chapter was the focus of the last time he was up, and today Alaska figured large.

One fascinating topic that emerged was the little-known consequences of WWII on the native peoples of the Aleutian islands. People interested in this may check out this site. That association helped publish a book on the topic (Kirtland, John C. and David F. Coffin, Jr. The Relocation and Internment of the Aleuts during World War II, Volumes I-IX. Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Anchorage, Alaska. 1981 and Kirtland, John C. A Case in Law and Equity for Compensation. Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Anchorage. 1981.). Also see this site. Strangely enough, the one dead link your notetaker found on that website was the one describing the Attu taken to Japan and made to work in mines.

Charhys led a discussion of domestic violence. Last week we looked at the topic in the home, and today’s focus was on domestic violence among and against teens. Violence is about power and control, and the point is to dominate the victim. Put-downs can qualify, for the persistent criticism works toward the same end.

For those wishing to recall some of the facts she went over, not recorded here, similar information and resources can be found here. Lots of information is available in .pdf form at this page.

We took a quiz that highlighted some facts about teens in relationships, with reference to violence.

As a note, we were given chocolates as a reward for getting quiz questions correct. We didn’t have to give them back if we got one wrong.

Charhys conducted a study of the relation between domestic violence in the home and in relationships, and getting involved in gangs. She found a strong relationship. It was typical for young women involved in gangs to report demands from men that signify a strong set of expectations—about women needing to be domestic, to serve men, to pay money. The also reported a strong set of expectations on the part of the men in their lives to be ‘ladylike’—to not use certain language, to not get too high, to be faithful, to never flirt, and so on. The young women also generally recognized that the attitudes were closely connected to males valuing their status.

Her study also found that young people, especially the women, do not have role models of good relationships and yet live under pervasive expectations to be in a relationship.

We discussed the availability of good data on the details of domestic violence. For those interested, a good starting point for data about domestic violence is the American Bar Associations Commission on Domestic Violence, here. More data on teens is available at this site. The DOJ report from 2006 on domestic violence of all types is here.

Another topic that emerged from the discussion, from participants with experience counseling young people, was that people have very little information about sex and relationships.

Of course, that is the focus of Charhys’ work at YWCA. Young folks simply need more information about relationships, about violence, about sex, and what they can do to respond to situations.

Several participants shared shared accounts of their own experiences, and people they have known, who have been in dangerous relationships.

Hey, PBS’s NOW ran a segment on their last show about sexual harassment and violence in the workplace. See it on their website.

Conversation Recap for February 15, 2009

2009-03-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

Today we started with an effort to construct a phone tree, so that we can notify the group. This was an attempt to fine tune the notification process that was tested on the occasion of the cancelled budget meeting at Evergreen last Tuesday evening.

Instead of a story, we tried a device of having everyone write a note to someone else in the Conversation.

Charhys and Mona led a discussion of domestic violence. They brought poster displays as well as handouts. They work in YWCA programs that offer a number of services to victims of domestic violence. Legal advocates help victims navigate the shoals of the system, whether with hospitals, the courts, and so on.

If you know someone who is a victim of domestic violence, give them the phone number of the YWCA Pierce County: 253-272-4181. (more contact info below)

Charhys works on prevention among teens, and focuses in part on talking to teens about qualities of relationships.
The following appears on the YWCA website about domestic violence:

Domestic violence is abusive behavior that can be physical, sexual, psychological or economic. It is intended to establish and maintain control over another person. It affects people of every race, religion, and economic class. Over 80% of victims of domestic violence are women and 80% of perpetrators are men.

Domestic violence is a crime in the state of Washington. Under the Revised Code of Washington (RCW 26.50.010), domestic violence is defined as: a) physical harm, bodily injury, assault or the infliction of fear of imminent physical harm, bodily injury or assault between family or household members; b) sexual assault of one family or household member by another; or c) stalking as defined in RCW 9A.46.110 of one family or household member by another family or household member. (Further definitions and descriptions can be found in RCW 26.50.010 and RCW 10.99.020.)

Research indicates that half of all women in the United States will experience some form of violence from their partners during their lives, and that more than one-third are battered repeatedly. In 85% of assaults, the crimes are committed by men against women and for that reason it is an area of major interest to the YWCA. While physical indicators are signs of abuse, it can also be less noticeable and much more insidious. Abuse can be any attempt to control, manipulate or demean someone using physical, psychological, sexual, or economic tactics.
15-25% of pregnant women are battered.
80-85% of all documented reports of adult domestic violence are women abused by their male partners.
10-12% of documented adult domestic violence is the physical abuse of men by their female partners
20-39% of documented cases of domestic violence are reported within the gay/bisexual/lesbian/transgender community (accounting for about 3-8% of the total number of documented cases of domestic violence).
50-70% of men who abuse their female partners also physically abuse their children.
Of all female victims of homicide in the U.S., 30% are killed by husbands or boyfriends, a total of almost 1,500 women each year.
28% of teen relationships involve violence.

A detailed discussion of behaviors, responses and resources for help are available at here.

A great deal of material is found at the website of the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence. From that website you can get to a recent 100-page publication, Now That We Know, that examines many topics, such as disparities in violence across the color line in Washington State. We discussed this particular point at several points—efforts to emphasize such disparities perhaps are unwise outside of a discussion of how to allocate program resources, because it quickly turns to (if it didn’t start out as) a way of disparaging ‘those people’ (which ever group one is referring to) as somehow inherently more violent, thus diminishing the significance of violence against particular people, and deflecting attention from our systems of dealing with domestic violence.

Mona reminded us that President Obama said we have an empathy deficit—and in the case of domestic violence it is part of a generalized effort to hide domestic violence. Efforts to characterize one group or another as more violent is of a piece with claiming domestic violence is someone else’s problem.

The WA state effort hopes to influence the legislature to fill in some of the gaps in the system, of which there are many.

One item our discussion leaders mentioned was the Adverse Childhood Experience Study, which looks at the consequences of living in a violent household. See it here.

Conversation Recap for February 7, 2009

2009-02-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

This morning twenty-two of us began with check-in, and a discussion of progress on the Conversation barter system.

Today we heard Dalton’s story, written in the form of a letter to his children, on the occasion of attending a funeral.

The ensuing discussion went into the different senses of community we see in different places. The sense of community in a place where we grew up, where people tend to stay forever, is palpable. A funeral seems to gather the markers of community.

We also discussed writing letters—something done less often in this electronic age.

We heard a musical interlude, to songs from Steve and Kristi.

Tom, Eve and Keith led a discussion of ‘why we honor people,’ an topic that grew out of the Tacoma Civil Rights Honor Roll. Keith opened with several ideas—we tend to honor warriors. One point of the Civil Rights Honor Roll is that there are many people among us who do the work for years—as a society we tend to honor them less often. Eve and Tom expanded on the idea of the apparently ordinary people among us who do the less-noticed work of justice.
One participant recounted a story of attempting to teach kids who were not supposed to succeed—and a small bit of publicity about the successes drew naysayers. There are institutional forces that react to publicly honoring people. This raised a question: how does the audience of the people being honored feel connected to them? Nationalism is a powerful force that is instantly conjured by political leaders, and can use it to build support for policies. It is not difficult to connect this to honoring soldiers. And yet that dialog can not always be easily controlled—we were reminded of how public perceptions of the war in Vietnam changed.
Several people told stories on the general theme of organizations or people within them attracting attention, attracting honors as resume building, while the workers are ignored. With some of the examples the details were left out, yet it was a theme that many around the table indicated they recognized. We did not delve deeply into this.

We briefly discussed the example of Ben Carson, the surgeon who was the subject of a TV movie broadcast last night. Among the points raised—he was raised by a single mom in a poor city. How often do we hear attacks on single moms, yet here is an example of someone who was always a star—in his high school, college, early medical career, and so on to his current world fame. We seldom hear praises for the single moms of people like this.

One participant asked whether we have the vocabulary to do the honoring we are talking about, particularly with respect to recognizing people of color. The negative images are ubiquitous and powerful.

Another participant suggested that when it comes to justice work, we honor people and then the dialog moves on. People forget what we honored. It is not like we have the continued institutional focus of a national government or armed forces that commands attention of the media. Recognizing the folks who struggle is in part saying we step into the struggle with them—and that can include a comparison with the more comfortable parts of our lives and the forces that enable injustice to persist. This can be a difficult thing to do.

Another participant noted that many of the people we honor as a nation are not clearly connected with the youth he works with. The people we honor are put before us as role models—and yet plenty of kids do not see the connection. He offered that famous people we honor—the examples were George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.—had their personal failings. Honoring people in their complexity might be helpful to showing how they actually do connect to ordinary people, such as a 16 year-old in Tacoma.

A leader of the discussion acknowledged one motivation for today’s discussion is a desire to examine the criteria used by the Conversation to come up with the honorees at the annual MLK Day celebration. Among the issues raised were the following. By focusing on people who have been at civil rights work for a decade or more means that the honorees are going to be of a certain age. Some work that we regard as important may not be classified as “civil rights.” Some in the room draw meaningful distinctions between civil rights and social justice, although as the discussion showed there isn’t a consensus on this point. It is possible we wish to do another kind of honoring, perhaps even at SoJust, if the work we are honoring is close to the focus of that annual festival. One participant noted the timeline of the nomination and recognition process, and connected it to the possibility of drawing ongoing attention to the kinds of things we find important. Another participant said the city’s political leaders used to do more recognition of upcoming leaders, and that is worth doing. The City of Destiny awards go in that direction. One idea is that it is possible to make distinctions among types of civil rights work.

We might want to note that historians and other scholars of civil rights use definitions that emphasize the quest for justice and equality. Distinctions are commonly made among discrimination, historical periods, particular public policies that promote or threaten justice.
One participant noted the national project for honoring the civilian dead in Iraq, at iraqimemorial.org.

Note This Announcement. The Lincoln Center first year students have the highest GPA of any school in Tacoma. WOW. This is a big deal, folks. This is being presented to the Tacoma School Board meeting this coming Thursday. The meeting begins at 6, and such recognitions are usually the first item on the agenda. (NOTE: The actual presentation of the news will come at the Study Session which begins at 5PM. Conversation members and others are encouraged to attend).

Tuesday the 10th, 6 pm, we need people to show up at Evergreen-Tacoma. The powers that be at the Evergreen State College are coming to talk about budget cuts throughout the college and how those might impact the Tacoma Campus. They need to hear how we value the place. Please come if you can. Bring others who share the sentiment.

Conversation Recap for January 25, 2009

2009-02-08T14:53:00.000-08:00

We began with a check-in. We welcomed a new participant.

Today we heard Tina’s story.

In the discussion we touched on the Courage and Renewal workshops, and the ways they encourage people to connect their self-understandings with their vocations, and their avocations. Phrases used in the workshop contain short-hand references to stories and ideas shared there. The use of a new vocabulary to make sense of one’s life can allow a person to quickly combine several ideas, to emphasize connections between the different pieces of a life.

Another theme that emerged was the shifts in diversity that often accompany transitions in life, such as moving to another state because of a job or education. For example, going from Foss High School to an all-white small-town Southwest atmosphere can be a shock. It also has consequences for what happens to our kids.

We started a discussion of the MLK event.

As a prelude, we listened to the new Seal cover of the song, “A change is gonna come,” title track on his new CD.

And, we watched the January 24 weekly youtube talk by President Obama (see it here). It is a short overview of the policies he intends to pursue during his term. In it he mentioned a website his people have put together.

We discussed some ideas referred to in the talk. People have a lot of hopes about what can be done. One clear point emerged—there is a lot of work to be done, and much of the work has to happen in states and in local communities. High presidential approval ratings do not by themselves produce policy changes. Comments that emphasized the hopes also mentioned the work to be done.

One person noted his limited comments on the health care system, and said that it seems like he is organizing to do something larger. People might be interested in an excellent article on the topic in The New Yorker.

Several participants noted the importance of making opportunities, of a new type, for younger people. For example, some plans for shifting us to different energy sources include creation of many new jobs—who will be trained for them, who will fill them?

We then entered the MLK discussion. One participant reported comments from the Maiselle Bridges family. This was very important to them, and to us.

Several participants noted surprise at the size of the Sons of Thunder group—there was a miscommunication there, and several people here expected five to show up. Another person commented that sometimes choir directors ask members to participate and guess at how many will be able to and that may be where the confusion was--they all came! Several commented on how much we enjoyed their set.

For the Future, it is a good idea to have performance acts submit a stage diagram with details of their setup, including microphone placement etc. It is also a sign of the importance of rehearsals—many people were not informed of what was going on at which rehearsal activity. Some participants discussed the wisdom of clearly designating some of these responsibilities. If we don’t do that, then when things come up they just get piled on the one or two people that are handling organization details.

Accolades to Steve Philbrook, the sound man, who adapted.

There was apparently little cooperation among the local mainstream media, although there was a notification in one of the Seattle papers in their list of MLK events, and one participant talked to a couple of people who came from Seattle just for the event. The News Tribune ran a January 19 story, a day late, about MLK celebrations in the areas. There was a story in the News Tribune, as well as one of their photo slideshows available online. See the photos here. To see the TNT story, go here. There was some speculation that the story of the little boy who was killed at the monster truck event might have preempted an earlier commitment to run a story prior to the MLK event.

We also discussed several issues connected to the public face of the event—is it religious news, is it entertainment news, is it part of the arts—How should we promote it? We have limited control over the TNT’s placement.

The estimate of attendance: something like 250 to 275, although some felt there must have been more.

Many participants mentioned the high quality of the signers’ work.

A couple of the honorees asked if they could say something, and asked our Host for the microphone. Though there had been no requirement to do so, Eve chose to allow them to speak.

We discussed the tables in the basement. There wasn’t much attendance. One suggestion: have them upstairs in the anteroom at people exit.

Other very positive accolades were shared over the introduction for Dexter, done by Callista; by Steve & Kristi’s set; by Eve’s work as host; for the co-chairs of the planning effort, Callista and Mona; for Rosalind’s dramatic piece that was part of the program.

There was some discussion of what the event actually is. It is entertainment, in several senses. It is ritual. It is church. It is part of what the Conversation does. One participant used the metaphor of a full meal being served to the community. Another way to see it is by examining the many facets of the Civil Rights Movement—some of it was pulpit, some of it was SNCC, some of it was Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, etc. It wasn’t one thing, beyond the unifying core of social justice.

Perhaps the news media needs a regular section on social justice.

If the church was packed, the dynamic for many things would be different. How to do that? One way to think about it—what are our communities, and how can we each link them to the MLK event next year? Perhaps we all have opportunities to do this. Another idea is to assign sections to members of the Conversation—have each sign up for finding 20 audience members, something like that. One participant asked people to come, and about 80% of the invited folks showed up.

MLK Redeeming the Vision 2009

2009-01-31T13:12:00.001-08:00

Photobucket Album

Conversation Recap for December 7, 2008

2008-12-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

Nineteen of us gathered this morning under clouds, with the sweet, spicy aroma of several dishes laid out on the table.

We listened to of Dexter’s KXOT commentary from August, on the pending election of Obama. You can hear it HERE.

In the ensuing discussion we heard many echoes of the themes in Dexter’s talk. The consensus is that the talk very usefully framed the mix of symbolic and material outcomes possible from this election. There are many sides to what is going on.

One participant noted some commentary from Naomi Klein, which you can get a sense of at the following:
• Democracy Now!
• The Nation
• AlterNet

One participant noted that the left in the US needs to be much better at supporting people. Take a look at this, for instance. Are you kidding? Why take it in that direction?

Another vital policy question is his policies about the war in Afghanistan. This might be a sign of the way his advisors constitute such significant choices. The machine that is in place might constrain his choices, and it is very possible that very bad outcomes are down the road.

We continued last week’s discussions with a presentation, entitled “Racism 201.” Last week an earlier attempt to discuss it took an unplanned turn, and we never did get back to the original topic. As he read last week from the concluding chapter of his book, Dexter suggested that none of us are untouched by what happened regarding race in the United States. Shortly afterwards the conversation took some turns that Dexter felt were especially critical of him, and it hurt.

Terms of engagement of the discussion. (from a list last week, based on a Conversation document from a couple of years ago)
1. Remember none of us is excluded
2. we are all both teachers and learners
3. manifest mutual respect and caring for each other
4. work hard to create a safe and liberated space
5. develop a thoroughgoing analysis of racism
6. embrace difference
7. racism is a difficult emotionally laden subject.

In the exchanges last week, the discussion was framed as one person marginalizing or minimizing the statements of someone else, and from therethe discussion never got back to the original topic. This week he offers a new list for Strategies of Engagement.
1. Assume best intentions
2. listen carefully and with curiosity, not with certainty
3. listen to understand not just to respond
4. own your works and your feelings by using “I statements”
5. engage, be courageous, explore your own discomfort
6. empathize, be courteous, allow others to explore their own discomfort
7. engage intellectually and emotionally
8. commit to talking through issues even if after session conversations are needed

One participant noted that there are some responsibilities shouldered by all of us. If someone says something that strikes us as somehow not right, or not following the terms of engagement about what we can say and what is left for others to say (say, about how we ourselves feel, and how we think others feel), we all have an obligation to seek clarification. Don’t let something sit there. Feel an obligation to request clarification. One participant suggested her obligation (and by extension, an obligation shared by all) to respond honestly and sincerely to things heard at the Conversation.

Other participants noted the same thing—that they noticed a need to clarify a topic, but balked at doing so. Several people expressed similar concerns, and described the particular issues that led them to hesitate. Remember folks, letting things ride is not an option.

One participant noted that we, like Dexter, play several roles here—sometimes we are listeners, sometimes we are speakers, sometimes we have a role in facilitating, and more.

We looked at some of the Conversation documents, available on the website. If you are reading this from the blog, check the links on the left, “Conversation History and Structure.” Some tentative suggestions were made about the content of some of those documents, yet most who spoke on the topic believe the current distribution of roles works well for us.

One participant noted that this extended discussion of process illuminates some of the approaches to our roles that we bring to discussions of racism—how active are we, how many of the terms of engagement we skillfully follow.

One participant shared that the conversation last week did not produce feelings of conflict or discomfort—on the contrary, his memory was that the conversation got into some interesting and illuminating territory from several points of view.

One participant noted that we each have a piece to contribute to a discussion of race, we each have experiences with it. And, we wish to try to understand these many perspectives.

A new slide in the Racism 201 presentation made these points: America is often depicted as Eden. And, it has two original sins…. the near extermination of the native population, and the importation of slaves from Africa.

Conversation Recap for November 9, 2008

2008-11-16T20:04:00.000-08:00

We met at Evergreen and checked in.

We went around the circle with stories about where we were when he heard about the election outcome. Participants found a wide range of things to appreciate about the Obama victory. This is a time to remember for participants of the Conversation.

Several participants reported having friends from beyond our borders who offered congratulations and more—the whole world seems to be ecstatic about the election outcome.

We also discussed some expectations about political outcomes in the Congress, whose final makeup is not yet known—a couple of recounts are underway.

One participant observed that our joy for the election outcome needs to be tempered by a practical awareness of what happens after elections. A political machine exists, and the people who voted are not directly involved in exercising influence. Officials in the government, including appointees, and interest groups are the ones who are there day in and day out. The election is just a start. We were reminded that the post civil-war hope of overturning slavery, seriously reconstructing the country, quickly was swamped by the conservative counter-movement. Is a new reconstruction possible?

One observation shared by several people, was that this is a time to help articulate a progressive vision. We can help with that right now. Staying engaged might mean keeping in contact with elected officials. It might mean taking opportunities to speak, write and publish political visions that reduce the influence of the right wing dominated talk radio, along with its influence over the mainstream media.

Another topic that arose: to what extent is this an inherently conservative country? It is something we hear repeated. Yet ask for clarifications on what that means.

We continue today with a discussion of liberation theology (LT). We were guided by Dexter’s powerpoint presentation. For people looking for summaries of liberation theology, check these summaries: www.landreform.org/boff2.htm (an emphasis on development of the ideas, and its historical stages); www.con-spiration.de/texte/english/2006/liberation-e.html (an emphasis on how liberation theology did not bring about the institutional and social changes initially pursued, but that the movement still is evolving and has much to offer). For an academic treatment of liberation theology applied to the special case of Africa and decolonization, see Dibinga Wa Said, “An African Theory of Decolonization,” at www.jstor.org/stable/1509100?seq=1. As a note, you may be interested in the obituary of Hugo Assmann, in March of this year, in the Times of London, at www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3531857.ece.

Theologically, LT includes the idea that God needs to be seen as more than transcendent. The divine mysteries are clarified when we can see the suffering of others, in particular the plight of the poor. The evangelical quest, in LT, is not just to proclaim the good news, but to actually change the world. God becomes less mysterious if we see it moving us to live better, liberated from oppression and injustice. When peace comes, that is good news.

We were invited to consider the work of evangelism, worldwide and in our personal lives. There are opportunities to point out ideas about peace, and justice.

LT is partly grounded in the Old Testament, in the story of the liberation of Israel. It is also grounded in the New Testament, in Jesus as a liberator. The news to the poor is not merely salvation after death, but freedom from poverty and from oppression due to race, sex and class. The worldly examples of the message are many, such as Luke 1:51-3.

The LT construction of faith, hope and love speaks to the work people do here on earth, as well—fidelity to history, confidence about the future here on earth, and opting for doing something about poverty. The ‘end times’ vision of Christianity that is popular these days is precisely the opposite interpretation as LT—a giving up on this world, and for some actually promoting a last battle, starting in the Middle East, with an eye toward hastening the end of this world.

We grouped to discuss three questions: implications of LT for our (referring to the United States, not just us personally) religious practices, how LT affects our concept of God, and how it affects our work for social justice.

We heard of some experiences from Central America in the 1980s, when death squads targeted priests and teachers as a tactic directly aimed at LT and what it offered to the poor. And historically it turned out that parallel structures were required to carry the movement, because if it is just in the church its opponents have clear targets.

We heard some observations on the divisions among Christian churches with regard to the message offered on engagement in the world.

One report on the period from the mid-1970s Central America suggested that the movement during the time toward governments more on the left was part of that, and that the construction of it officially offered by our government, and generally supported in the media, was that this was evil communism.

One participant suggested that this is a version of a larger issue. For all of us, we can ask ourselves what is our relationship to people in poverty. It is not just something that people with a strong religious faith have to work with.

What does it mean to have a revolution without violence that targets poverty? LT asks people to fundamentally change many things. It asks for major changes in institutional priorities, in government policies.

One suggested we have a serious discussion of redistributing the wealth. One participant observed that we have trouble discussing this publicly because, in practice, we currently do redistribute wealth—through the tax code, through subsidies and legal support of various economic activities, we redistribute wealth upwards.

We heard a couple of observations about the quality of political arguments in the United States. The venom of talk radio (one person reported hearing a claim that Obama will be a “dictatorial socialist”) is repeated by people on the street. A participant told a story of seeing a couple of them at a Veterans for Peace march the other day.

One participant told an interesting story of how the state of Arkansas restored its usury laws and thereby kicked the check cashing businesses out.

The arguments for the plight of the poor seem to lose in this country, at least for the last 28 years. We can perhaps do something about this, and keep the pressure on.

It is possible that something like 85% of Washingtonians eligible to vote did so in this last election, which makes it the closest thing we have seen to an election expressing the genuine will of the people. Well, a continuation of these levels of engagement will make us look back at this election as genuinely transformative.

Involving at-risk youth in gardening: Thurs, 9 am

Conversation Recap for October 19, 2008

2008-10-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

The day after the Achievement Gap Summit, we check in, and straggle in, but we are here. About 17 of us assembled.

Today we heard Colleen’s story.

In it we heard of several people who were bright and yet poorly served by schools. There is a clear pattern in schools of defining learning rather narrowly, and responding rather poorly to kids who learn outside of those bounds. One way to think of it: the schools seem designed to serve middle class white little girls, and not much else.

In the discussion we heard more stories of kids who were smart but didn’t fit into the schools. As part of these stories, a common thing to emerge is that parents find ways to blame themselves when their children have difficulties. Another theme: MANY of us have similar stories in our families. One part of it seems to be the categories used to classify kids—what constitutes adequate learning, what constitutes “behind” something like “grade level,” what constitutes adequate measurement of the standards, and so on.

One message that emerged: The kids have a much better chance of finding a path to success if they have parents who are highly skilled advocates. That seems to be a gigantic source of inequality. The kids who are not well-served by schools and who don’t have highly skilled parents face huge barriers.

The conversation in this group may have to add one more dimension. Note how the Achievement Gap Summit was built on the premise that there needs to be an incubator of ideas for people in schools, and connected to schools, so that people can take something useful back to their schools—go out from the incubator and produce change. This group turns out to have a wide range of skills and experience, and can come up with some original ideas. We should develop a team to get some funding to connect some of the people in this group, and to do this work. We can easily name three of us that have the right mix of knowledge and experience to work on the issues we care about—such as the achievement gap.

We turn to a related topic: What several of us are working on.

Dexter told us about HB2722. Years ago, a number of people—like Thelma Jackson, the Tacoma Black Collective—started to advocate in many forums for changing education to better serve African American children. At some point the strategy shifted to getting a law passed so that designated resources could produce an agenda. That resulted in HB2722, which in particular, it has the state recognize specifically the unmet needs of African American students.

The committee Dexter is part of is empowered to meet and set goals to promote change, suggest needed policies, programs and strategies for the state and local schools to consider, and to suggest benchmarks for achieving the goals.

Two committee meetings are left: Thursday, Nov. 20, from 10 until 2 or perhaps 4 (somewhere in Renton); and Thursday, Dec. 11, from 10-4 (somewhere in Olympia). A town hall meeting will be November 20, 6:30-8:30.

For more, CLICK HERE.

Tom told us about the Black Collective, which has been engaged with the school district for years. Things have gotten to the point where the Black Collective can no longer assume the School Board is going to act in good faith. Instead they have expressed to the Board a set of expectations about what constitutes progress, and set a condition on it: if progress has been made, they will support the Board’s future requests for voter approval of levies and bond issues; no progress, they will encourage members and allies to not support those requests for money. Several allied organizations have said they will also send this message to the School Board.

Tom also told us about the Tacoma 360 initiative. Remember GetSmartTacoma? They had several rounds of planning and discussion, and it sounded like a commitment to take action—but no money and commitment to specific steps to implement those ideas. Also, remember about a year ago when Tacoma Schools sent a team to a conference at Harvard, charged to come back and be a catalyst for change? The Harvard study group met for a few months, but support from the Tacoma administration evaporated…. just after Superintendent Jarvis was chosen as the Superintendent (previously he had held “interim” status).

Tacoma 360 is an effort to draw together the School Board, the city, Metro Park, and others to commit to an action agenda—the main device being the appointment of a person who will have the job of bringing those plans to an action level.

Eve told us about the “Meaningful High School Diploma Initiative,” which you can read about HERE. The state legislature asked the State Board of Education to develop a better set of graduation requirements, and Eve is one of the people involved in this. They have drafted a new credit framework called “Core 24.” This is from the website:
CORE 24 is based on the following principles:

Equip everyone: Prepare ALL students for life after high school—in gainful employment, an apprenticeship or postsecondary education. Expect more: Align requirements to meet the increased expectations of the 21st century workforce.

Provide flexibility: Allow students to customize their education, creating relevance to their interests.

Give focus: Encourage students to align course work to achieve their future career goals.

Plan ahead: Emphasize the High School and Beyond Plan to offer students personalized guidance to prepare them for work, postsecondary education, or both.

Start early: Prepare students to enter high school and create opportunities to meet high school graduation requirements in middle school.

The central idea, then, is that we need multiple pathways to graduation, and no matter what path in life a graduating senior has chosen, they are prepared to do it successfully. This is a proposal to make that happen, now before the Washington State Board of Education.

Colleen described the activities of the education group. We attend Board Meetings, get involved in discussions of issues before the Board, and on alternative Thursdays meet to discuss strategies and tactics. Recently we chose to ask the Board for demographic detail of programs, by school building, in programs like AP, IB, and various special ed programs. Several years ago the Federal Way schools put together these data for their district. In one of those odd concatenations of events, the person who put together the data for the Federal Way schools now works for the Tacoma schools, and knows how to do it.

We suspect that AP and IB programs dramatically underrepresent African American children, and that special ed programs dramatically overrepresent them.

As a side note: The HB2722 group is strongly suggesting the publication of such data.

We broke into small groups to consider action items related to these initiatives.

One group came up with the following:

Run a candidate for school board, be thoughtful about how the education group links with the Conversation and with other groups (the Ed Group should be a leader of where the Conversation should go), perhaps focus the Conversation on education issues for several months or until a goal is achieved; develop an approach to identify particular children and help them succeed; perhaps develop a model of what a good school looks like, by constructing it; and maybe take over one or all of the schools that are within a year of failing the AYP standards; perhaps develop an affiliation with the school district (precedents include the Tacoma Urban League Academy and the Tacoma School of the Arts.

Another group came up with the following:

The data that we are uncovering needs to be seen by a lot of people; something like a Town Hall, for students, for parents, to discuss this type of thing, and we could make recordings of them to encourage growth of such initiatives; in every school there should be some kind of person that has links to student families; each of us could think about the communities we are connected with, and find ways to connect them with our efforts.

In summary, Dexter suggested we need a way to take this conversation forward, distill the ideas and come back to the larger group. We will look at draft of such a thing next week.

Conversation Recap forSeptember 28, 2008

2008-10-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Today we checked in, and noted that next week is our potluck (once each month we will do that, on the first meeting of the month).

Today we heard Dalton’s story.

Several agreed that chats between fathers and sons were scarce during the 1950s and 1960s.

We also talked about the politics of our times, in particular electoral politics. The presidential election commands our attention—and we want to look at what we think about leadership, what we know (and want to know) about our political institutions and practices.

We started with burning questions.

1. The electoral college, and its relevance today. An 18th century method of counting votes, originally a way to count votes for President.

2. What ideas about leadership did the authors of the Constitution have in mind, and what are some significant shifts since then?

3. What is the safest way to vote today, to make sure my vote gets counted?

4. Can we split our ticket in a national election? (Can you vote for who ever you want?)

5. Representative democracy (which the authors of the Constitution called “republican” government) does not seem, in our system, to represent the majority of the people. What are ways to get more people’s voices heard?

6. What are the advantages of having a two-party system? Why do we have it?

7. Is there a way we can keep the next election from being manipulated, or, as some in the room put it, stolen?

We discussed some of these, and ways that they overlap. We will go back to these questions.

Conversation Recap for September 21, 2008

2008-09-21T21:55:00.000-07:00

We opened with a check-in, sixteen of us assembling at the start time, and a half dozen more shortly thereafter.

Today we heard Sid’s story, part two. In the ensuing discussion participants turned to the topic of code words in today’s USA. Several noted examples of things they have heard lately, in conversations, in media coverage of the election, and in the advertisements of candidates for office. For example, the McCain campaign featured a speech by him where he said the election was between a party that put country first and a party that put Obama first. The implication of less than full patriotism invites the listener to fill in for themselves the meaning of the other position. We noted several examples of people latching on to any old reason, any will do, to justify to themselves a refusal to vote for an African American. Very few people now feel comfortable saying it directly. It is all code words now. A more explicit ad was the one that featured Obama and Fannie Mae chair Tom Raines, with scrolls of “financial fraud” and other bad things running across the screen…. so we see these two black men followed by a white woman who sounds a bit intimidated. Come on, now—how many of the public know who Raines is? Why was it Raines instead of any other leader of the other organizations involved in the financial scandal, all of whom are white? This is a rather deliberate juxtaposition of black and white. One can use code words to make the point. And that is being done.

One participant offered a way to cope. If you or someone you know is not registered to vote, help them do so, help them get to the polls or to fill in their ballot.

We welcomed the return of Rosalind, who is back from her half-year stay in Texas. Participants said warm things—we notice he many contributions of people more easily, perhaps, when we stare at the empty space they filled. The expressions of appreciation ended with Patti LaBelle’s you are my friend (it’s on her “The Best of Patti LaBelle” cd).

This week the topic is leadership, in general and right here in the Conversation. Next week we are going to continue the discussion of leadership in an electoral context, so stay tuned.

For example, people noted the contributions made by Rosalind, and the connections we find regularly. Bringing people together is the product of work.

One way to think about leadership here is to compare understandings of the role of facilitator. One can see a facilitator as a neutral consultant who comes into an organization to bring them to a new place. In the Conversation, our facilitator is an insider, who is anything but neutral.

One participant noted the idea of neutrality, and suggested it is largely a myth that masks positions on issues.

What is leadership, who are leaders, what do they do? Dexter offered this definition to begin with: Having a vision which includes goals, connecting the reality we are in, and figuring out how to get to those goals. So essential tasks will include identifying and managing the steps needed to get to those goals.

Many participants in the Conversation do that, or elements of it, all the kind. And here we assemble, week after week, and people have stepped into many leadership roles in The Conversation.

One book Dexter relied upon for the analysis of leadership is by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner, The Leadership Challenge. (They have written several books on this and related concepts.) They list many qualities of leaders, and here is a list of some of the big ones: Honesty, forward looking, competence, inspiration, intelligence. That honesty is a big one—it speaks to a relationship that requires a certain quality that is internal, something that has to do with a person’s character. This gets us on grounds that are hard to judge. Something a little different from character is from the Greek ethos. It occurs when the group, for instance, recognizes a person as honest. It is a connection between group and leader. The members of the group recognize the leader is not there to exploit them, that he or she is guided by the best interests of the group members.

One participant told us about a book by Drew Westen, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.” He was interviewed on Bill Moyers, which you can visit at http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/436/index.html. His analysis goes to a widespread preference or emotional engagement by candidates rather than the details of policy proposals.

Dexter noted three skills needed by leaders: The ability to develop oneself, the ability to deploy one’s own strengths and weaknesses, the ability to facilitate or develop the abilities of other.

The elements noted in the previous two paragraphs serve as tensions in our politics. One of the qualities commonly noted about the President of the United States, for example, is that he is not a man given to self-doubt, not someone who revisits past decisions to examine whether things are going well. By the qualities noted in the Kouzes and Posner approach, this is trouble. How much trouble? Consider the following:

Leadership practices, a list of the top nine:
1. Learning all the time
2. Listening (and, attentive listening is not something that occurs naturally for most of us)
3. Discipline (in part, understanding what one can and can not do because of the responsibilities of leadership)
4. Reflection
5. Compassion
6. Action
7. Take account of time, manage it well
8. Persistence
9. Attitude—understand what attitude communicates to people.

One participant noted our efforts to understand the political choices of our fellow citizens. Personal experience, and he is a person that listens, leads him to conclude that a very large number of people, maybe 2/3, are ready to take the step and recognize the need for large scale changes. Our fears that racism will produce a 10 or 20 point advantage to McCain may not be right. We might not understand the common sense of others very well.

We will see.

One participant noted that in the list of leadership skills, several items are comparatively passive, being a member of a group, being with people.

Some Conversation members attended a Courage and Renewal workshop yesterday. One reported on a discussion of the ways love and power interconnect. This echoed the earlier observations about ethos, the other-regardingness that comes from the connections among people. By the way, this workshop was brought to Tacoma by the actions of one of our participants.

One participant noted that the Conversation can move from valuing these qualities of leadership to learning how to deploy them—some of it might be each of us focusing on what elements we want to develop. Some of it might be in the programming decisions we make.

One participant described different levels of leadership—influence within organizations can come from people who are not titular heads of anything. Others can understand the intensity of commitment or other qualities among other members of their group, and willingly confer leadership authority on those people.

One participant described a new word, multicentricism—it means, many centers moving, all in a single direction. Acting on a challenge from a leader, she coined it to refer to the many backgrounds, circles in which we travel, knowledge and skills, cultural endowments, and so on, that can be drawn together in the pursuit of a task. Take a look at it from the other side—we have picked up from our cultural endowments many forms of weaponry, and our diversity can be a toolbox of ways to not get along with each other. Several Conversation members regularly work in their jobs finding ways to work with others and develop the toolbox of cooperation.
Two participants had a letter published in the News Tribune this week. It spoke to issues we discussed today.

One participant noted that the qualities exercised in one political campaign now is really at odds with the qualities needed to govern. The campaign is earnestly developing a distortion, an image that is patently at odds with the truth.

One participant noted that he holds on to “church” because it is one of the best working models of community groups that regularly meet and identify people who can express qualities of leadership. Following that, people around let a person know they are in a position to provide some leadership. In church, you learn if you can sing.

Announcements
SoJust needs folks, Saturday Oct 4, to assist with the program—at the kids’ zone, greeters and program handlers, a presence in the various rooms in use (such as being at a table where folks are writing letters to elected officials), food patrol, and cleanup (Setup starts at 10, the event starts at 2, cleanup starts at 6 pm).

Seattle Bioneers are having a gathering Oct. 17-19, see it at http://www.nweec.org/seattlebioneers/.

Sept. 26, at Kings’ Books, 7pm, Mazda Majidi will speak on the situation in the Persian/Arabian Gulf.

Time to register for the Achievement Gap summit II, Oct 18.

Conversation Recap for September 14, 2008

2008-09-20T16:00:00.000-07:00

Check ins. People are transitioning back into school, some into new employment, others are dealing with serious family health issues.

Intros of new people.

We heard Stephen P’s Story.

Discussion revolved around growing up in isolated privilege and coming to awareness of injustice and social inequality and the gifts that come with that awareness.

Dexter led us in a discussion around how we are progressing as a group. His summary of where we’ve come included the notions that
1. We are an intentional group
2. We are en engaged group

We are committed to this engagement in the sense that we embrace the challenge of embracing the challenge of staying together. When one of us “makes a mistake” and others call us on it, do we return the next week, gather ourselves and return the following week or lick our wounds and disappear?

Full engagement in each others lives is how we will move forward as well as finding the balance between spirituality and social justice. He reminded us that we are the only group of this kind anywhere in this community-not with this level of open membership.

Someone said that as one who is less comfortable with pursuing spirituality, they have personally benefitted from the discussions of Buddism and meditation.

Others cautioned that spirituality and religion can cause problems within an organization because everyone has a different idea about who/what God is.

Several said that religion and spirituality should not be used synonymously and that social justice work is spiritual work and fulfills that space for them.

One person mentioned trying to meet at 1pm on Sundays for awhile to see if that works better for folks who are attending church.

Others talked about how this group fulfills their spiritual needs.

One person talked about the consumptive appetites of so many religious traditions and not being willing to give all that one is to that tradition. But so many of us DO seek connectedness with other people and as this group grows and sustains itself, not having that consumptive appetite grow as well.

Another talked about how the diversity of spiritual traditions in our group means that we can all access wisdom and support from each other without it becoming something that we push on one another. We are spiritual and we are also free in that we accept each other’s spiritual diversity.

Friday night was offered as an option as well, being the end of the week. Another thought that there are people who would enjoy coming but not necessarily every week. Maybe the Sunday at 1 could be once a month, and those who are more committed could come every Sunday.

One person said that they get satisfaction form the group as it is, though some small changes could make the facilitation of discussions even better.

Another point made was that while religion and spirituality should not be heavily emphasized, we should not ever make any subject taboo as long as we keep our commitment to respectful discussion.

One person suggested that we each talk with those we know who have not been coming to get a feel for why. It may not always be about church conflicts.

Another point was about how people often are religious hypocrites-actions speak louder than words. Sometimes we have excuses for not coming that we just need to get over. Those of us that are here are those of us that will be here.

Dexter wrapped up by saying that there is no desire necessarily to make a campaign to “get anybody back” it’s more about sitting with an individual to make sure that we didn’t do anything as a group that felt like an injustice to them. We do operate as adults and people vote with their feet all the time.

The academic perspective that he brings is that we do need to hear “the other side” even if we do not agree so he will not be a member of the group that says it will only talk with democrats.

Another comment was about not needing to go out and recruit those with very different views, but welcoming and respecting those who come to us with differing viewpoints should be our goal.

Announcements:

SoJust has met it’s fundraising goal of $3,500. Lineup is ready, posters done. Anyone with suggestions for community organizations to table at SoJust, let Sonja or another SoJust committee member know.

MLK committee decided to go ahead again and partner with Associated Ministries as fiscal agent. Still need to identify honorees.

Elizabeth Wesley Youth Merit Incentive Awards Celebration
1PM on Sat. Sept. 20th at Clover Park Technical College Sharon McGavick Center

Achievement Gap Summit II on Oct. 18th at UPS

Tacoma Civil Rights Project exhibit is on display at the Washington History Museum until Dec. 7th

Conversation Recap for September 7, 2008

2008-09-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

NOTE: NEXT WEEK, SEPT. 14, WE RETURN TO EVERGREEN.

We met in Wright Park, which at 9:30 was covered with soft, thin clouds, trees shimmering in a soft breeze, almost 60 Fahrenheit but due to rise to about 67 by the time we are finished.

Check-in found many people working with the transition to the start of the school year. Many people who do not work directly in education have schedules that vibrate with the rhythms of school. Several people were able to get to the Friday screening of the film that accompanies the Tacoma Civil Rights Project.

Today we heard Tina’s story.

In the ensuing discussion we looked at one event when, quite unintentionally and obliquely, a question brought to the surface a pervasive assumption about who belongs in a community.

In these times when political life offers discouraging revelations about the country, participants said, it is good to hear stories of personal courage in standing up to nonsense. Several of us nodded our heads at a reference to situations where, later, we wished we had spoken up.

One person pointed out that racist language is coded. Public discourse is permeated with references to ‘nice people’ and similar ideas that do not need to be expanded for others to understand.

Today we heard from Callista on “meditation within chaos,” an assigned title.

Why would someone meditate? In the tradition she described (one brought to the United States by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, or for short, Trungpa), we meditate in order to open ourselves to possibilities in the world. We began with a demonstration, with people following guidance on a meditation technique—mindfulness, attention to the out-breath, letting the in-breath simply happen. If thoughts arise, simply label them ‘thinking’ and go back to attention on the out-breath. Eyes should be open with a soft gaze several feet in front.

We then discussed what people noticed during the technique.

Using this and related techniques aim at providing a stable mind—quieting the chatter that goes on in almost everyone’s brains. The chatter is a barrier to deeper insights about how one is thinking and experiencing the world. For example, we habitually move to judgment in particular situations, and these techniques can provide awareness of how our mind has these habits.

We don’t meditate in order to become good meditators. It is about discovering how our minds work.

Why do people start meditating? One experience offered to the group: There was a public meeting with members of an intentional community with contemplative leanings, and at the start of the meeting they asked for two minutes of silence. The participant saw something to which she had been oblivious—physical pain and emotional tension. It was a sign that everyday life is often obscure to us, and our responses can be more aware. Many people begin to meditate in response to particular trauma, such as the loss of someone close or a severe illness.

At a presentation some time ago Dale Asrael told a story from a book called Radical Acceptance, by Tara Brach, about a tiger in a zoo in Washington DC: The tiger was in a small cage, and visitors would see it tracing the limits of its restricted environment. Some visitors organized to create a new enclosure that had features of a more natural setting. On the day the tiger was offered access to the new area, it marked out a square the size of the old cage, and it spent all its days tracing the boundaries of that imaginary small space. It was not able to live outside of its old habits.

And most of us share some qualities of mind with the tiger, and we stay with the world we think we know. The habitual cage of our own making can be left. We can step out of it. This approach to meditation aims at enabling people to do that.

When people find some value in this aspect of meditation, some people adopt it as a path. Its benefits is offered less as a one-time revelation of a different state of mind, but as a path for living that pays explicit attention to qualities of mind.

In the tradition described in Callista’s talk, there are three phases in the path. The Hiniyana (“small vehicle” or “narrow vehicle”) has one focus on their own suffering and their release from it.

The Mahayana (“great vehicle”) has one focus on the possibility of releasing other beings, all beings, from their suffering. The phase emphasizes wisdom (in significant part by becoming aware of “emptiness,” much like the tiger did not recognize the space around, the potential for other action, right action, to occur. ) and compassion (many techniques are used to develop compassion toward other beings, other people). The suffering of others is chiefly the result of ignorance, such as a lack of awareness of that emptiness that makes many things possible. It is not to be labeled as evil. Practitioners develop a willingness to live in the chaos around us, to acknowledge the confusion that we and others live in. That means, in part, not slamming others with it. One can be compassionate toward others before they clean up their act.

The Vajrayana (indestructible vehicle”) phase of the path relies on techniques that encourage “sacred outlook,” an encounter with direct experience—lie the tiger was not able to do. It is the responsibility of the practitioner to find in situations the sacred part, and find ways to work with it. Practitioners see emotions, for example, as energy, which means one tries not to judge them. They try to be open, to not have an agenda that one tries to impose on others.

For another day, perhaps: the Shambhala yana, which is a focus on creating an enlightened society.

The grounding in compassion is an essential part of this, as there is a danger that people see the techniques as a path to power. It is something that one does, as mentioned before, a path. Daily practice keeps reminding practitioners of the basics. Part of the tradition, also, is having a teacher, one who knows you and can call you on your games. Another part of it is being part of a community, called a sangha.

Several participants commented on the analysis of ignorance in this depiction of meditation. There are many facets to it.

There is no formula for how long it takes to get good at these meditation techniques—some can be good at it relatively soon, and others can find roadblocks that just stop them, teachers leave and die…. The chief variables might be the ability to clear out one’s life to find room for the work, having some personal discipline, and being in the community that supports it.

One participant reported a similar encounter with life changes—more positive to think about creating new habits than in defining one’s current practices as bad habits, and that a teacher is essential to calling one on their games, and disciplined practice to have the new habits settle into life—much like a disturbed pond whose turbid waters settle into clarity.

Starting next week, we are back to Evergreen.

V team members should expect to stick around next week to do some planning. Some fundamental things need to be discussed—who we want to be as a community, the social justice connection in what we do, as well as housekeeping matters such as time and place of meetings.

Sept 23, Kings Books, 7 pm, talk about economics of global warming.
Sept 26, Kings Books, 7 pm, a talk about Iran.
Oct 17 Steve and Christy will perform at Kings Books at 7 pm.

Yesler community center, in Seattle, 10-2, Disability Empowerment Day event, Sept 20.

Adult college fair at Evergreen campus in Tacoma, representatives Sept 13 from 9:30-1:30.

October 18, Achievement Gap Summit II, Save the Date.

Conversation Recap for August 31, 2008

2008-09-19T22:13:00.000-07:00

We met in Wright Park. People wore coats, hats, and some brought gloves. August….

In pre-meeting conversations, a participant extolled the Chambers Creek golf course walk. Don’t be put off by the idea that you are going to walk by a golf course. This is a great local resource, try it.

SoJust note: Fundraising is coming along, a variety of artists, SAVE THE DATE Location: The Evergreen State College Tacoma Campus (6th and MLK)
October 4, 2008 Evergreen Tacoma 1210 6th Avenue 2-6pm.

Traveling soon? Check the info available on our own Dalton’s website, at www.dalton.worldventures.com, for a powerful search engine for flights etc. There is more to the business at Dalton.worldventures.biz.

We shared a lot of job stories during check-in, some with new jobs, some with challenges in current ones, some doing new things in the old job. Plus, we heard from eyewitness accounts from the Democratic National Convention.

We heard from Eve on “paradoxes of urban living.” Here are a couple:
--The city’s lure of wealth and resources, AND the perils that exist in the streets.
--Our great instinct for community, AND our increasing ability to express it in ways that separate us from each other.

One can be so separated from other people living in close proximity. Three shared stories about the bargains of city life, how some places we live everyone knows everyone else, and others where long-term neighbors are strangers.

For an example of someone who tries to help people construct community through the conduct
One participant described growing up in row houses in Philadelphia, with porches as gathering places, and with frequent block parties. Yet the crack era of the 1980s broke that up a bit, and the violence and fear that came with it imposed a heavy burden on community. Great fear of others, distrust—these are the real barriers to community. By comparison, Tacoma does not seem urban.

One participant described the experience of moving from a small town to the “stalls” of apartment life. In the modern world, we do not take in others, not near as much.

Multiple participants discussed a lost ability to feel responsible for others, the sense that we are our brothers keeper seemed to be stronger in earlier times and in other places. Don’t expect to be able to move to those earlier places, however. The modern zoned country filled with 3 to 5 acre plots do not feel like the small places of our youth.

One participant juxtaposed that with the quick community possible among folks who have shared an experience. You have all seen a version of this. After a convention speech in a huge stadium, lots of people piled onto a train to get on with their evening…. Quick warmth, lots of people in cheerful conversation with folks they just met. Maybe it doesn’t take much to accept such offers of community.

A long time ago, some of us lived on farms, with no close neighbors. Yet we frequently connected with those neighbors. The urge for community does not have obvious rules about proximity.

One story about an apartment house that was the closest community a participant had ever seen—it was not clear what it was that produced the closeness. The trust among people was quite high.

One participant introduced the topic of how community is a commodity, commercialized in advertisement. Concepts of urban living are in part shaped by people who want your money. They want us to see private consumption as a path to community (remember the old rule: the object of an addition never satisfies the addiction). This is one of those paradoxes—the dynamism of capitalism gives much and imposes large costs.

Several participants shared memories of when things changed where they lived—when folks starting locking things up, how the disconnection among neighbors grew.

Near the end of the discussion it turned out that several participants had been thinking about the possibilities of intentional communities, particularly as a way to handle those years when we get older, when children are long gone, and so on.

The discussions produced some wise rules.
--If you find something to be hateful, don’t do it to your neighbors.
--Get into the business of your neighbors more often—there are little things you can do to sow seeds of compassion.

Go out and inflict joy on someone.

Conversation Recap for July 27, 2008

2008-07-28T21:59:00.000-07:00

We met at Manitou Park for The Conversation & Fresh Kidz Barbeque. See mini slideshow above. Click on any image to see more.

Conversation Recap for July 20, 2007

2008-07-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

We met in Wright Park, and it was cool enough that the group turned heliotropic, following the arc traced by the sun across park grass.

Today we heard Keith’s story, and a wide-ranging discussion followed.

We discussed varieties of corruption, with attention to who benefits and who incurs the costs of different types. It is probably fair to say the different definitions of corruptions are connected to beliefs about justice—the nature and scope of justice situations, and the kinds of remedies one would support. Some ways of seeing corruption focus on the political climate for large businesses. Some seem concerned with situations faced by the largest parts of the population, either middle class folks or people closely connected to the money economy (in poorer countries, many people are not thus connected).

One feature of corruption in the US is its role in degrading a trained, reliable civil service in the United States. Public employees share a broad consensus about the directions taken over much of the last decade. Conversation members may be interested in a recent study published by the chief scholar of the civil service, Paul Light.

The discussion also included considerations of what we regard as properly public, and properly private. The prison, or detention facility, on Tacoma’s tideflats is run by a private company. It has expanded a couple of times, and has plans for more. The increasingly privatized prison industry raises fundamental justice questions.

A view of justice as fairness for people led to comparisons between our corruption discussions and the “40 acres and a mule” idea. For a time we discussed the Freedman’s Bureau, its connection to political issues at the end of the Civil War, and general Sherman’s decision to divide many of the lands taken by his armies into plots of land for those recently freed from slavery. And, after Lincoln’s assassination, Sherman’s orders were rescinded.

The conversation went to this conclusion: this country has found it impossible to collectively acknowledge what has happened to black people in the United States. By any historical comparison, a holocaust happened. But there has been no memorial, no reparations.

We then discussed ideas about what would make this situation whole, and most of it revolved around the context of the upcoming election. Several people offered ideas on what Obama would be able to do as a candidate and as president. Most seemed to agree that what is needed is an acknowledgement of what occurred, a huge commitment to jobs, education and housing in the pursuit of a more equal society, and open discussion of the presence of race in everyday American life.

As part of the discussions, it seemed as though accounts of deservedness of individual people is complicated, and perhaps a distraction from the larger issue. But it does come up.

Conversation Recap for July 13, 2008

2008-07-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

We heard Tully's story and then had a great presentation and discussion of the new Lincoln High School program "The Lincoln Center"

Patrick Irwin- Principal Lincoln has been there for 4 years. Mom is graduate of Lincoln high school has worked at OSPI and TPS Central Admin and has been looking at what people do differently – different models- Jefferey Canada doing work in Harlem – Harlem Children’s Zone- parenting classes, nutrition, marshal arts, music, dance, foreign language, extended support after school and on weekends. James Comer at Yale talked about conspiracy of adults who refused to let him fail- at Lincoln for past four years kids have come in unprepared. As principal at McIlveigh Middle – raised test scores but students still not prepared for high school. Low expectations by teachers who "feel bad for kids so don’t push them to succeed"- He agrees with only one concept ever uttered by Bush “soft bigotry of low expectations”.

Get Smart Tacoma Summit last year in Tacoma- well intentioned - no traction

This year’s freshmen at Lincoln most impoverished most mobile kids ill-prepared in Sept. had Eastside Children's Zone meeting with OSPI and community teachers team went back to Harvard Harvard group and Get Smart Tacoma now has a new name - Tacoma 360.
Essentially getting people to come up with a plan where kids have services around the clock that they need to be successful when it looked as though nothing.

Mt T principal came over to team pricipal with Pat and do extended day model. Could do enrichment activities, museums, etc. Some kids have never been to Downtown Tacoma.

Lincoln Center is extended day model –

Middle School’s are starting to get on board – new Portland ave middle school

Q: families that need most support- have no choice to leave area sometimes so what happens when they have to leave program.

A: have different agencies partner pierce transit community health so they don’t get slipped through cracks

Needs community support no question about it

Still wants to hold school system accountable while goes out to community school district still needs to provide resources and support too

Have meeting scheduled with DSHS and also want to bring mental health component into school as well

Model of school treating everyoned educational institutions second equally is limiting school systems are employment agencies first a

Mentoring programs with school of the arts and other programs robotics

Study shows students lost a years of academic growth in transition years 5-6 and we can’t afford thatso we need to teach time management

Historically Lincoln had night school that was bigger than day school people taking language etc.

Meeting with people about evening piece but day is first priority

Instead of wa state history teach Lincoln historand Tacoma history to get ou into community and then state get kids out into state mt st Helens Columbia gorge see what state looks like

Pull kids in for a week late summer in sugust

Safety- crime peaks in America from 3-6 problems happen after school on evenings and weekends

Model also does something for school in general- kids are better off in 1990’s school had chess team

Questions/Comments

This thurs hb 2722 meeting dexter goes to legislative mandate is to come up with a proposal to address achievement gap
Thifriday as part of alf project iviting about 20 people who are working on the frontline with kids who are already on the fringes of the school system tobring about 150 kids who are w orking insode a program with people who are direct funders scholarship

Race and Pedagogy- fall achievement gap summit

Parents summer spring

Next r n p conference 2010

Tacoma civil rights project- this fall at history museum- have interviewed a number of people- going to develop for k-12 and college and general information
-
Get smart Tacoma- came up and disappeared – reportsform this group that were part of conversation- one common reference what program is ther
Around that address these issues- r and p one of the constants- no follow up to get smart

Admin of k-12 administration has been disrupted for a year plus now so we would like to restart that connection dexter’s own perception is that Tacoma school district right now has to go through retirement cycle to change system need strong leadership to start from top and vertically go through system but believes in work that circumvents administration even though they do not get the work – this Lincoln center could be that work-
Conversation has educationally interest group to influence

Question put to Pat is giving him platform to say to us how can we help him do this and be thinking at multiple levels- all programs mentioned have connections at various levels-

More questions:

Q: In program is there a place to include mental health sessions to include parents
A: have to provide this and yes want to do work their

Q: why not a later start?
A: busing, sports but agrees

Q: dshs- a lot of families cannot make appointment so may want to have a dedicated liaison for Lincoln to help set appointments

Q: service learning, internships year 2-3?, use of computer for self programs that let students go at own pace for spelling etc.

Q: mentioned goal but would like to hear about process how will it work

A: this is tough iussue for the first right now relying on people saying want to be a part of it- working with middle school and doing home visits off their list or may say here are the services come take advantage of them need buy in and outreach

Q: danger of too much publicity- have success in paper tooting horns and then got backlash and sabotage- can get nasty stuff

A: yes can even come from in the school one expectation is all should take honors English but then would look like exclusive thing

Q: when rudy cruz was superintendent a teacher at mary lyon become endeavor center at mary lyon- lauries daughter went to it once the initiator left the whole program went away- howill you protect this

A: the more people we have involved iof work than less likely that it in process and creation to go away- rumor that pat will go downtown but wants to stay at Lincoln and like model of co-principal

Q: thanks for presentation what did not hear was full community involvement understands- knows school as place that does nothing after school hours most of time is just a building sense that trying to get kids to learn outside classroom didn’t hear the connection to parent learning and economic driver of small business- meetings could happen at Lincoln somehow if you could bring students and organizations together knows there are security issues but could be worked out would like to know that they are moving toward that connection.

A: would like to have opp to do at school what they do not do at home ornald ferguson will be speaking at Lincoln high school on aug 18th “excellence with equity” is new book his concluding chapter talks about teaching crisis
Working with parents is key- did not get go ahead until may Jarvis had to do some budget things have community advisory panel wants Lincoln to become community school model for Tacoma have investment classes and parenting classes talked with frank Russell

Q: what ave you done with community parrtnering kmart target uw foundation grants and things that may come under their purvey what about those who have disability should be a portion of program so that children are raised feeling normal-
A: has meetingwith bob has good history with Lincoln high school looking at universities worked with terri b and uni’s don sloma shared with him would be embarrassed what people give money to for achievement gap there is money to be had gates foundation fn kyle miller – gates does work with schools but do it all over the place- still oppp there

Q:mmight there be opp for student reemployment for those that have to choose between work and school to have option

A: have done some

Q:might their be mentoring programs for students who are shut down toaway form top down teacher control model get

A: Lincoln has become palce to be for educators who make it great and will be looking for community members to come in

Q: what does faculty look like in terms of being representative of students-
A:have 5 teacherss 4 are cauc and one af-am just don’t have it is an issue in Tacoma right now just don’t have a good representation

Q: what about admin team?

A: has addressed that with admin – district has missed opps over the years

Q: could one af am asst principal at stadium be assigned to Lincoln for this program role modeling is so critical to being engaged that worried that the intentions of this program could be lessened without staff representation

A: oner thinghero used to have in Tacoma was peoplein system that know Tacoma are from Tacoma , have hero and achievers in school to mentor but cannot serve all –once at hero assembly and student thought they were lying bc never meet af am male that had college degree before this spurred him onto doing hard work in amy’s class

Q: are there assistant teacher positions to get more people in class

A: ups does good job plu and evergreen first year and Lincoln had 17 dif students and was a mess so had to straigten that out

Q: hisotrical black college students could come to intern has been done before in Tacoma- 2 places to check on that- diversity initiative at Puyallup school district

A: tim heron act 6 has gone to whitworth trinitiy Lutheran-

What can conversation do: mentoring piece, access points for kids- sitting on a panel

Adult soccer at lincoln on Sundays – more than 100 men pass through and students need role model so could connection be made-

Questions of presenting models or modules for work seek to highlight innovative programs – would part be willing to present this model at achievement gap summit

We do know that not only is there resistance in system to thorough going ans straightforward program but straight out rejection of this work
We are invested at various levels in doing this work

Q: concern for advocacy of students- worked wsith gear-up program and found thaaf am collegues had very solid relatiohip and students and students would share with them so feels it is ab essential bc youth do not trust adults really need rep in that if do not have the faculty than really need support system be there consostenly multiple times a week

A: has talked to korbet mosely and men of action to get o board- dr ingrahm

Q: nationwide strong push to identify students from communities that need to be rep as educators could get in that pipeline

A: WSU has program

Q: now really curioushow to get this to work

A: goes back to identification and getting and into certain profind a way to be able to control who teaches at school must be able to break contract and schools be able to

Q: find a way…………..

A:In one way nclb is terrible flawed but is also a civil rights and have to look differnelty so don’t push self out of job

Q: teachers that are quality get involved in unions etc.

A: Ronnie

Q: exchange with conv for adults and youth

A: can use space anytime and do sessions on Sunday

Q: What are the barriers to getting teachers of color in schools?

A: pat’s responsibilities in American society in general do not value education media telling that edu is not happiness city council just added education to advisory committee
Maybe hoping for educational revolution maybe with Obama as president wants to replicate harlem model

Q: You have a lot of optimism but do not have the ability to select people that you think are best for your school is a pessimistic reality-

Q: y are teaachers who exp is actually in what theople in union need to figure out how to structure union and senority different

Q: need to get teachers who are actually trained in what they are teaching

A: do in ctc system- do have some trainined in their professions - again certification process

Wrap-up:

Should be alternative approach to cert. but that is often used to impune teachers- anti-intellectuals=ism gets advanced by saying people in classroom do not know what they are doing- when teaching is a craft

Encouragethat conversation is taking place on multiple levels 2 years ago it was not. 2 yrsd ago chair and another rep made presentation to a community group and were asked question about failure in district and they said thay have 75 % rate ( a c grade if you accept that #) comes from admin who do not respect our communities with pat on notion that you cannot expect- if you are committed to students of color you can tell them the truth- when talk about 75% rate inside of that the % in there is above 50 and sometimes lower. I say lets continue to change the players and the game.

Conversation Recap for July 6, 2008

2008-07-07T22:02:00.000-07:00

We met on Tacoma’s Ruston waterfront, about 200 meters West of the Fireboat on display. A bit more than a dozen of us assembled with much good food, and the weather cooperated.

During check-in we were informed that the Washington State Historical Museum will open an exhibit on Civil Rights in Tacoma, on August 18.

The topic today was national identity, and two people brought flags to display, many of them hand made.

We saw several approaches to the idea of national identity. One frequently used was to conceive of where one’s ancestors are from, in terms of nation states. Some pointed out the shaky foundations of such concepts, as in the case of a Mexican-American whose family stayed in the same place while borders shifted.

We also visited, several times, the idea of whiteness as a blended construct which is part of US nationalism. At times, the “normal” category, as one participant referred to it, does not get marked out as an identity. Over time, whiteness has consisted of many things—color, religion, behavior, consumption patterns, and more.

More than one participant shared stories that suggested historical memory is not a strong suit in the US. Most folks, at one time or another, have run into reminders that we don’t know the history of various groups.

One participant offered a simile of ethnicity as a sort of cafeteria, where many people get to select which identification they prefer. And, some get the identification applied by others. We seemed to agree that the choice in the matter increased with degree to which one appears to be white.

And, there were tales of family secrets of identity, like German backgrounds in the mid 20th century.

One participant noted that nationalism is a modern and rather odd idea, that no one saw it coming, and that some recent scholarship describes it as essentially a religious affiliation.

We discussed components of national identity in the US. One participant speculated that many constructions of ancestry rely on questionable assumptions about their forbearers’ fidelity.

We witnessed a couple of examples of flag desecration in the garments worn by passers by.

We were reminded of the geneticist Spencer Wells, whose book The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey summarizes a widely shared conclusion—that all humans are descended from a person or persons who lived in Africa about 31,000 to 79,000 years ago, and that there is more genetic variation between individual members of a single “racial” group than there is across groups. The discussion moved to consider the differences we note between humans as largely ideological, yet primate biologists usually dispute this.

Several participants described a desire to deemphasize nationalism.

Several participants mentioned the Census, and for a time we discussed the use of “race” in this national account of who we are. We were reminded that the categories applied by the Census have changed over time—in the mid-19th century, people were classified as white, black or mulatto; in the later part of that century the Census added American Indians (those taxed—recall Article I Section 2 of the Constitution), Chinese and Japanese to the list. One census (1890) included “Quadroons and Octoroons.” One (1930) used “Mexican” as a racial category. (See a brief historical overview, from which much of the above was lifted, at http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0056.html) The two questions in the 2000 census (the first asking if a person is “Spanish/Hispanic/Latino” and the second asking if a person is one of 14 categories, including “other.” In addition, our laws over the years have recognized different sets of rights based on such classifications. After the abolition of slavery, state laws mandated segregation, limited property ownership and political rights, and proscribed marriage between whites and others.

The Census categories reflected a national conflation of the concepts of race and ethnicity. In this regard one may consult the American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) response to the categories used in the 2000 Census, which they generally approved of as a step in the direction of abandoning the use of “race” as a category in the 2010 census. (See it at http://www.aaanet.org/gvt/ombdraft.htm) The AAA regards race as an idea created as part of the wave of Western European encounters with other peoples beginning in the late 15th century, and which was part of an understanding of differences among humans as somehow essential and closely tied to racist interpretations of human morphology and behavior.

For a short time we discussed the Cherokee Freedmen controversy (see the wikipedia page on it, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_Freedmen_Controversy).

Conversation Recap for June 15, 2008

2008-06-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Today was our First Summer Day Outdoors. Seventeen of us met at Owen Beach, in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park, and people brought loads of excellent food.

During check-in, one participant suggested a Conversation emblem we could adopt, a form of body ornamentation. Several participants evinced an interest.

Today we heard Crestina’s story.

In the ensuing discussion, we discussed stereotypes, the encounters with them during childhood, and the ways we make sense of them now. We came back to this several times. This is at the heart of the Conversation. At times one of us may bring up something that cuts at another member. As one participant said to the participant who uttered the phrase, If it were uttered in a context where I didn’t know you, I would have walked out.

But there was no walking out. Instead we talked about it. People said what was on their minds, and we listened to each other. As one participant told us, the Conversation is a place where we can deal with a little tough honesty.

Among the things said: It is very important to look at the history of stereotypes. What is conjured by the images. In the not-too-distant path it was common for products to be marketed with images of African Americans on the label, in advertising, or in the shape of the package. Examples include Aunt Jemimah Syrup, Uncle Ben’s Rice, and Cream of Wheat. These are historically transitory figures, people who are always depicted as servants, people who disappear once the consumer (say, a child) is past that stage of life when they eat a lot of syrup. One participant summarized such images as “one of the chains that hold us back.” Another participant said the stereotypes fix a limit or ceiling on African Americans.

A related topic: Participants reported numerous social situations where whites are not confronted about our relationships to stereotypes. Some reported a common response, when confronted, is to step back from the situation, as if attacked. It is almost as if there were unwritten rules that say whites do not have to examine these ideas, and their participation in their perpetuation.

Also in the ensuing discussion, we discussed constitutional rights, what they have signified, protected, and empowered over time. For example, in the US it is common to define the Bill of Rights as primarily protections for individuals against government power. At other times in our history they were constructed in more economic terms, such as in the many European immigrants who came here voluntarily seeking a better life. When we characterize the United States as a “we” story, the word “we” is problematic. Are we sure others see it the same way, and share in the story the same way?

One participant suggested a book to read at this point: Octavia Butler, Kindred.

We also discussed connections between the Conversation and social justice topics. A commitment to social justices means difficult topics will come up now and then, topics that ask us to engage in conversations about how we live. We considered generally some questions about how we see transformation of the community. One participant noted that in the current presidential contest there is “big time naiveté,” that the campaigns are avoiding the topic, and that the media are not at all interested in such story lines.

We discussed ways at reaching out to a wider community. One was a forum that focuses on mythologies in the USA, perhaps a series. There are myths that are perhaps properly addressed at the 4th of July, or in the lead-up to the presidential election. Other interesting myths deal with race, the founding, economic opportunity.

Many of the participants are, to use the phrase of one first-time participant, old heads. One possibility for linking up with and listening to not-yet-old heads is to have them invite us to show up in their neighborhood. Perhaps we will get invited to Manitou Park, and we could bring food, etc., and have an interesting conversation. Maybe this will happen July 27. More to come on this. Among the topics that might be discussed: drugs, gangs, pregnancy, and maybe racism (although we heard that younger folks don’t talk about it much).

We learned that, despite the wet and cool Spring so far, we are in a drought season.

This discussion, and going to a public park, was in pursuit of a goal of the Conversation. Get people, and mostly white people, to take the risk to get out and listen to, talk with some folks that are usually seen one-dimensionally.

Conversation Recap for June 7, 2008

2008-06-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

Next week, June 15, we are optimistically projected to meet outside. We will meet at Owen Beach, which is in Point Defiance Park. The topic is checking in on where we are in our lives.

During check-in, we heard from Laurie, now in her last week at ESC before moving on to her new job. More on that later.

This week we heard Kathy’s story, part two. Imagine being in NYC 1964-8, the music, the theater, the politics, it was a place where many things happened. A central part of the story was the 1968 strike that began in April of 1968, and the recent 40th anniversary of those events.

The discussion drew out comparisons among the white, black and Asian students during that time, and contemporary accounts made it clear that this was a time when segregation was the norm, and the ways this affected life went largely unnoticed by the white students.

One of the reasons the police took a while to arrest the strikers was that they were worried about Harlem exploding, possibly as a reaction to any mistreatment of black students.

Another strand of conversation looked at student activism, and comparisons between now and those times. There is student activism today, largely focused on the Iraq war.

When asked about her own writing, Kathy described her interviews of members of mixed families. One feature of making sense of the interviews is the question of identity. This is in part a product of the context that defines the color line in America—recall the days of miscegenation laws, the ‘one-drop’ rule, and legalized segregation. She has five categories she asked her respondents about: ascribed identity (what people call a person), cultural identity (cultural features where people find strength, entertainment, etc.), self-identification (what people use when filling out forms, which is often not the same as the previous three categories), how people say they really identify, and a general question where she asked people to describe events or situations that make them feel more white or black or Asian. Identity is a complicated question.

The V-team will meet after today’s session to discuss and set an agenda for the next three or so months. We discussed topics for the V-team to take up. Next week they will present a proposed schedule.

Part of the V-team work may follow a call by Dexter to encourage more dynamic civic engagement on the part of the Conversation. We have subgroups that work on education and on peace issues. We also discussed the organization of small discussion groups within the larger Conversation. This is also connected to the possibilities of our growing, and how to handle larger groups. We also discussed possible topics: American exceptionalism, the links between race and class, the criminalization of immigration, health equity and disparities, a session on helping parents understand their rights and resources available to them in the education system (and elsewhere), public education, Obama’s use of the term ‘post-racial,’ contemporary civic engagement, economics and social justice, planning strategically for social and structural change, native Americans in the Northwest, sessions on Youth and Children. Another topic, perhaps in two weeks, is juveniles in the law and disproportionalities. Other topics are welcome. One thing to discuss is the time of our meetings—the issue we have discussed before that this is the church hour for lots of people, and there are consequences for who is able to be part of the Conversation.

Next week, June 15, we are optimistically projected to meet outside. We will meet at Owen Beach, which is in Point Defiance Park. It is also Sound-To-Narrows and Fathers Day, each which bring out lots of people.

Places to consider for the outdoor meetings.
• Somewhere along the Ruston Waterfront, like Dickman Mill Park
• Owens Beach
• Downtown Tacoma, at the History Museum
• Wright Park
• Peoples’ Park
• Titlow Beach
• There are park facilities or covered outdoor meeting areas at many of the schools, such as Lincoln Park.

If we commit to going outside for the summer, we are committed to potlucks. We will coordinate it through the folks now signed up for food. A couple of our number will check these out and propose a schedule for the next couple of months. One thing to consider: Perhaps instead of meeting at a different place each time, we meet at a couple of places. We will need to print something that everyone can have on their calendar, and in their pockets, to remind them and to help with invitations to people. We also need to put it front and center on the blog.

We express our profound thank you and appreciation to Laurie Arnold, for the many things she has done to organize and energize The Conversation. Several people offered testimonials.

We notice, we appreciate, that Laurie is our steady presence—here every week, here first, here to welcome us and make it happen. This rock steady person is also, as some of us know, rebellious. And we take from this a recognition of impeccable timing—when to be each.
In one testimonial, Laurie is called a fellow traveler in the fight against racism, in the struggle to help families in need, to make education possible for many for whom it was closed, she is the change we want to happen.

Laurie, “our butterfly,” who carries our presence through the internet. She creates stability in the communities she adopts, and we are grateful for doing that for us. She gives so generously to others. We love and honor her and her family of origin. She will now create support systems in new places.

In a tribute from a self-confessed odd person, thank you to Laurie for encouraging us in our oddities, to open Evergreen as a welcoming place for us.

Special thanks go out from Evergreen alumni, who have been welcomes, been taught through her role model as a caring person who fights racism, encourages students, and makes programs happen. The students love Laurie, several testified.

One participant reminded her there is life after change, and the wish for Laurie is for her to be able to experience these wonderful aspects of life in that new place, too.

Laurie is a pillar of the community, our community. Some etymology: pillar: One who occupies a central or responsible position, from the latin pila. The metaphor is architectural, of course, but pillar is the plural form of pilum, the javelin carried by Roman soldiers. For the Romans, pillars were seen as bundles of spears. Pillars don’t just stand there, they are fierce bundles of energy, ready to move and take action. And they are also not single things, but a gathering of the many parts that, together, hold the place up.

Conversation Recap for June 2, 2008

2008-06-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

We met as a smallish group on this cloudy day.

Our topic today is race and gender in the current political contests. So we asked people to come up with the “most irritating moment” in the campaigns and the coverage during the last few weeks.

One participant recounted the tale of a superdelegate from our state who recently made a move in the direction of Clinton. An email barrage erupted urging people to berate this person, and to send her entreaties to change back. The level of enmity seems to make people forget that people get to make decisions.

One participant told a story that brought the themes together—it is a dead end to try to decide whether the race or gender features of the election are more important. Where would this go—if you vote for Obama you are sexist, and if you vote for Clinton you are racist? And people get to criticize candidates without being labeled as racist or sexist.

For example, the recent media coverage of the priest who spoke at a Chicago church (yes, that Chicago church) and accused Clinton of exercising white privilege. Interestingly, the same priest was interviewed at length on the topic of reverend Wright, and the tape of it sounds like a smart and perceptive person…. but then when he gets to Wright’s former congregation, he goes off. There is the possibility, one participant observed, that people lose a bit of their minds when the media cameras and microphones are pointed in their direction.

The media coverage focuses too much on candidate statements about minor matters not related to policy—Clinton finding hope in the possibilities of June, Obama examining links between class, guns and religion, and so on.

Does anyone trust the statements of people who say they will vote this way or that, especially in response to the bitter fight within the Democratic party. The media attention is on the infighting, not policy. How many remember the divisive coverage, encouraged by the campaigns, of how the conflict in the economy is between white women looking for jobs, African Americans looking for jobs, and white working class voters looking for jobs? The media and some campaigns frame issues as confrontations between such groups, rather than looking at shared interests.

We discussed media content for a bit. One participant subscribes to both the TNT and the New York Times, and the former often runs stories from the latter—the headline pitch and the placement are usually quite different.

Is party identification (one’s loyalty to one of the major political parties) really durable? Do other features, like color, gender and class, trump party identification? We told anecdotal stories about immigrant groups that have been defined in part with reference to the color line. And there are plenty of anecdotal stories about individual voters, of whatever background, saying they will stay home, undervote or cross to McCain if Obama is the nominee.

There is a whole lot we do not know about this situation, because we have never seen it before. What will a campaign do? We can not expect the mass media to understand what all is going on and listen to, and report, whatever new developments emerge because of the unusual choices we face.

One participant received emails from a group of people, mostly white men, who find all sorts of reasons to not like Obama. These are fairly cosmopolitan people of means who see the world, etc.—there is a segment of our society that can perhaps never be moved on such a question.

We discussed the way the media categorize people—recall the dustup in the media, fed by Clinton advisors, that Appalachian voters (called white, working class) will not support Obama. How does this play into the election? We never have had the discussion of a real choice—Chris Rock could joke about insincere statements of support for Colin Powell, but it was an idea that did not get tested. (One story: Powell finally decided to not run when his wife told him the risk of his assassination was too great.)

One participant reported feeling hopeful one day, and feeling set up for a big disappointment the next. Recall what Dexter said in an earlier meeting—that this country has to go through race, it can’t go around it. And so this election offers a chance to do some of that, if Obama is the nominee.

One participant shared how gardening is good, when the media coverage just gets to be too much.

One interesting part of this experiment—are younger people more open, or in a more interesting place on the color line, than is the average person? Will a youth effect be stronger along the Coasts, or the West Coast, compared to states like Colorado? Areas like Appalachia do have pockets, towns that defy the stereotypes.

One participant told us about a documentary, Kilowatt Ours (see the website at http://www.kilowattours.org/) that is another version of the Thomas Franks “What’s the Matter With Kansas” argument. The documentary includes the idea that people whose economic interests are not looked after by anyone will go toward culture issues when they vote. BTW, Franks missed some important features of Kansas politics—poorer Kansas voters have been going less and less for Republicans over the last quarter century, and Democrats are much more likely to have the state legislative seats in districts with larger proportions of poor residents.

One participant, while discussing the way class can figure in our politics, recalled the film Harlan County (see the description on IMDB at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074605/, which says this about the movie: “This film documents the coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine of the Eastover Mining Company in Harlan County, Kentucky in June, 1973. Eastovers refusal to sign a contract (when the miners joined with the United Mine Workers of America) led to the strike, which lasted more than a year and included violent battles between gun-toting company thugs/scabs and the picketing miners and their supportive women-folk. Director Barbara Kopple puts the strike into perspective by giving us some background on the historical plight of the miners and some history of the UMWA.”). We do see in the media accounts of how distinct are poor, white Appalachian (or other area) voters, and connect that with racism. Perhaps one important piece of political identity in such areas is class. And it would be nice to have a good conversation about class in our politics.

One participant suggested that among the things that motivate people to vote, and to vote one way or another, is their judgment of whether a candidate is a person who will most likely look after my interests (as opposed to, for example, going down a list of issues and adding them up). BTW, there is pretty strong evidence this is true: Arthur H. Miller, et.al., “Schematic Assessment of Presidential Candidates,” The American Political Science Review 80 (1986) No. 2, pp. 521-40.

One participant noted that most young people do not know much about the history of the color line in America—for example, just the other evening one young person did not know about our history of marriage laws prohibiting whites and black from marrying, and defining who is white and black.

We talked a bit about the possibility of the Obama/Clinton ticket, at different times in the conversation. No one thought it was a good idea, or would work, or is likely.

Others have mentioned evidence that the rest of the world would see us very differently if Obama became president.

One participant raised the possibility that the country does not want to confront the idea that the USA is changing, and is not going to look at the way it has, or does not. An interesting comparison of this is Canada, which has made a conscious effort to have a discussion about diversity, has a government commission to study it, keep it in the news, and tweak its constitution with respect to issues that came up.

We discussed identity issues a bit, and one participant shared there are a lot of parts of our lives that serve as anchors of identity. People shared their perceptions of living in diverse neighborhoods, what things are like in the neighborhood surrounding our meeting place, visits to Canada, and Oakland. People shared stories about their observations of families, some suggesting there are trends here.

Announcements:

There is a possibility of having a “Courage and Renewal” retreat, say in September, at the Conversation. More to come about this.

Conversation Recap for May 25, 2008

2008-05-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

As part of intros, at a member’s request, we gave some background on what each of us does for a living. We are a K-12 teacher, student service coordinator, fair housing administrator, university nursing faculty, consultant to FDA on health products, director of Pierce County Community Services who also sits on the TPU Board, director and staff of Maxine Mimms Academy, parent support for a gang intervention program at the Urban League, student at Evergreen and member of hip-hop group 2012.

A question was raised about why our utility bills are so high and why there are so few resources for low-income people. There was some explanation about the market forces that affect our power rates as well as the revenue generating sources that can help lower costs. There was also some discussion of programs designed to help the poor.

Another question was raised about why people haven’t been coming. Laurie will resend the member list and each of us will call a name or two under our own from the list to see why they haven’t been coming.

Tom talked with us about the political process around nominating the democratic presidential candidate. Though there’s a lot of excitement around it this year. There is a nominating process and a convention process. Lots of folk who are involved now are not really aware of the procedures around this process.

The party itself has control over the process. There is a difference between the popular process and the party nominating process. The Supreme Court has said that political party members are the ones who may be credentialed to participate in the nominating process.

Our state has a caucus process. Feb. 9th was the state caucus date. They try to have the party caucuses on the same day for “party purity” purposes. The caucuses have 2 purposes—nominating and policy making (party platform). There is a mathematical formula for apportioning delegates for each presidential candidate based on how many caucus attendees sign in for a particular candidate.

The stages are:

Precinct Caucus
Legislative District Caucus
District Caucus
State Convention
National Convention

Who gets to play--Those who can bring people in to support them. Those who can get themselves known, by working, for example in the process—i.e., signing people in at the caucus etc.

The 25th district caucus, held at Jason Lee was the largest ever since 1972. Over 1,000. Just over 850 people attended the convention which represents a significant drop off, based on a misunderstanding of the roles and significance of the convention process and the nominating process and some folks probably lost interest in the policy making process.

A quorum call was made to see if 40% of the delegates were present. It was felt that the call was made strategically by Clinton supporters because they were outnumbered and wanted to quell Obama supporters ability to get platform planks that would be supported by Obama into the platform.

It is possible for delegates for one candidate to change their minds and vote for another candidate.

Discussion

Question—what role does the general public have in this process? Might there not be a 3rd purpose beyond the nominating and the platform process, that progressives have? The 8-hour workday, civil rights, etc. came about because people went into the streets. We need to intervene in the political system in ways that nourish social movements.

One person asked what might be 3 ways progressives might organize?

Community-level
Specific issues
Elect our own local officials
Alliances between these other 3

A point was made about how little influence and power the average American feels s/he has in politics.

Another issue that was brought up was how much time was taken up at the County Convention with amendments from the floor on resolutions so that a lot of time was spent by delegates voting on amendments they had very little time to think about. This time around some thing were managed differently AND there were so many more people attending.

One person said she was glad it was messy and hoped it stayed messy because we are struggling with inclusion.

A question was asked about what is done with the platform? It becomes party policy and candidates can be challenged based upon their position(s) on the platform planks.

Another person asked about Florida and Michigan. These 2 states broke party rules in moving up their primaries. Both Obama and Clinton pledged not to campaign in states that broke the rules.

One person said what Clinton is doing for women is phenomenal. Women have never had such a strong public voice.

One person remarked that we live in a representative democracy but we have the technology to do direct democracy. If we had direct electoral voting then Instant Runoff Voting would get his support but until then, in his opinion, IRV will just complicate matters.

Another felt that when someone invests in a process they should get a say in it. A person responded that he would love to believe that it’s possible, but his experience in Oakland was that when there was a large campaign to get rid of some very bad City Council members but at the end of the day, when the New Council was operating, they were faced with all these special interests in their face every day, “now that I’m here I understand the dynamics better” and the New Council became the Old Council within a year.

Hopefully, people will stay involved in the political process after the election and not just feel that it’s ok to go home and watch Jeopardy.

Another person remarked that there is no magic wand for building things but there is one for destroying things. Building something like universal health care will take some time.

Final comments were that this has been an engaging discussion and hopefully folks will take from I that our presence in important.

Conversation Recap for May 18, 2008

2008-05-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

We began at 9:15, and went around for our check-in. We were a small crew this morning, on a very sunny morning. It is supposed to be mid-70s today with rain coming in a couple of days. One wonders what else pulls folks away—a couple of people we know are traveling, someone is sick, and other things are just happening.

Today we heard part of Carl’s story.

One question that emerged from his story: How do you describe to a family standing on the front porch in an economically depressed former steel and coal town, that they have benefited from white privilege?

One participant suggested that it takes a relationship, over time, to work with someone on the idea. She recalled an MLK quote, roughly: yes there are poor whites, but poor whites are not poor because they are white.

Another response to the question—go to education. This is a nation with a deep anti-intellectual streak, a hate/love relationship with education and schooling. This is graduation weekend for many college people—and the question we hear at these gatherings is, ‘what are you going to do with that degree?’ Recall Lucius Outlaw’s speech at the Race & Pedagogy conference—that a big part of American education is educating for ignorance, of letting people have a free ride through life without having to confront the divisions among people. The rupture among analysts of the divisions in the US are along the color line. For example, note how we separate race and class—the struggle should be between the poor and the rich, but one can not say that.

We discussed the role of labor unions in doing the work of equality. In the US unions like many other groups, even the more progressive ones, still largely divided on the question of race. And we know what happened during the 1960s, with the Republican “Southern strategy” and the alliance with the rural counties in the United States.

In the discussion, more than one person has a relative who died from asthma and its complications. And, in at least one of the cases a major contribution was the rampant pollution back in the day.

We also noted the effects of class. One described a stark difference in how he was treated when he shifted from a traditional blue collar job to a white collar job.

One participant linked the discussion to institutions, both education and prisons. Some prison people he knows project their future population using dropout rates. And looking at schooling, in the districts with lots of minority students the teacher cadre tends to be overwhelmingly white, female, and young. And these in schools that fail to graduate anywhere between half and 70% of African American students. [This has an obvious connection to the reading today.]

One participant noted a parent’s voice, which several around the room echoed, that repeated the mantra: “if they would just try harder,” or “if they just work hard enough…” In high schools one version of this these days is, “if you study and keep your nose clean, you will get into college and get the scholarships to pay for it.” The mainstream narrative is to

Another answer to the union question—we have unions to thank for the weekend, decent hours and working conditions, living wage, the works. Taft-Hartley was an attempt to break the power of Unions, and it was Ronald Reagan who showed how the modern attack was to work. Why are the people in tough times not blaming Reagan for the assault on unions, and by extension, their opportunities in life.

An observation on American exceptionalism—the notion that the USA has something to offer that no other society has experienced. Plantation societies—much of the US, Barbados, Trinidad—are those that rely on the work of people who don’t have much power. And, of course, plantations are divided on the color line. This led to several observations on the Obama candidacy. The references to nationalism in his speeches are troubling to many of us.

What we do not see is politics framed through an ethic of universal respect for individuals. Politicians have offered a number of categories of who is on top and who is on the bottom. None yet has started with universal respect.

In June we will have a conversation about reading books in the future. One model is to pick one and do a chapter a week. Another is to take a topic, say, American exceptionalism, and read something that will be perhaps a collection of things. We will be having a conversation about it in June.

And we move to the book.

One of the passages we looked at is centered on p. 349, when Barbara was being put out of the apartment, and the description of the crowd-as-vultures waiting for the goods, and the guy with the gun saying “they can’t outrun this.”

A couple of folks who grew up in very different communities than the DC described by Suskind noted that the stability of their surroundings, in the face of poverty, would call up a very different response when one family was facing a crisis. It was “more like a family.” One interpretation offered to compare the situations is to look at the way mobility affects community ties. We have to add into it the availability of housing

It is likely that Suskind does not see the architecture of survival in poor communities, the degree to which cooperation is essential. Look at his stories about the church Barbara goes to—recall the early sections on asking people to give up their last dollar, and how Barbara was asked to put the $20, her last $20, into the plate. Then, about p. 350, Minister Borden shows up with the check that keeps Barbara from being evicted.

We went on to talk about the ways we do not step up to work on the tough systematic problems—note the stories about how Ballou High is doing. Suskind offers next to nothing outside the normal narrative of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. The dominant narrative that bothers to include poverty is about how hard-working, self-disciplined individuals struggle against the surrounding difficulties and rise above them. In that sense Suskind wrote a Horatio Alger book.

One participant noted that in our local schools there is a real reluctance to engage in discussion about race among the faculty, and yet students pick it up and seem willing to engage.
We discussed the underlying story in the book of Barbara, who works at the Dept. of Agriculture and, at the time of the book, made $20k after a good many years, which is not a living wage. Somewhere in the discussion we can get a lot further into jobs and employment policies.

A start of a conversation. We should have a discussion of what to do here, in Tacoma, about the systemic things we have noted about the book. Tacoma is where we live, and we know that the school district has enough difficulties for us to work on. Lots of students are being poorly served.

Here is an idea: There are 30 schools on the District improvement list, for several years now…. it is time to start talking about the possibility of taking those 30 schools and doing something. It might be possible, just musing here, to opt out of the District and to make another where some new things can be tried.

A parent group in Los Angeles, California, sued the school district over similar issues and actually won.

We also mentioned the importance of building a coalition that works on education in Tacoma, and discussed upcoming elections for Board positions. There actually are some efforts going on in that direction. Several people spoke to the importance of building alliances. “We can do this.”

Conversation Recap for May 11, 2008

2008-05-11T19:40:00.000-07:00

We began with the check-in, and we are all in.

No story today, and we discussed the format. Stories are ten minutes in length, and the limit allows more questions and discussion We passed around a list to schedule story tellers.

This past week the Washington Coalition for Homelessness met in Yakima. See them at http://www.endhomelessnesswa.org/. One speaker at the meeting was Liz Murray, whose story was depicted in the movie, From Homeless to Harvard. Here is a description at IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338109/.

We continued with our discussion of the book, A Hope in the Unseen, by Ron Suskind. We started talking for a bit about Suskind’s style. Among the observations: in his story, it is Ivy League that counts as real education, and the others don’t matter much (so the top student at Cedric’s high school, and his friend LaTisha, are lost in the story).

Take a look at p. 103, the story about Cedric and James, and their choices. “He and Cedric understand each other’s choices.” (middle of the page) It is another example of Suskind’s style, of having one central character that we care about, the others fall out—in this case, the story of what all is going on with James.

One member added this to Suskind, showing what an exceptional teacher or two at a school can do to the overall teacher experience. This has been the theme of movies like Stand and Deliver and The Principal.

The distinctions implied about quality among colleges leaves out of the story the places where just about all students are educated.

One interpretation of Cedric’s focus on MIT and the Ivies is also a sign of depending on external sources for measures of self-worth. He could perhaps get a lot out of other schools. But place it in a context of a couple of conversations in the book, in this case the appearance of Clarence Thomas. It opens a window on a tension faced by black people—Thomas tells a story of facing doubts and opportunities for failure, and the way to handle one’s self is always in a tension between taking opportunities and avoiding judgment and failure. As another participant mentioned, there are a lot of colleges around that top students look for, who understand that the grad

The Ivy campuses, and many others, are much more diverse than they used to be, observed one participant. And yet the very wealthy universities are picking the best test takers, and have the money to offer cheap or free rides to the students they want.

One member was recently able to see Thurgood, now playing in New York. And reading the Clarence Thomas episode in the book, what a comparison, that Clarence Thomas was the judge who replaced Thurgood Marshall. For Thurgood, get tickets at http://www.nytix.com/Links/Broadway/Shows/Current/thurgood.html.

We discussed the question of how Cedric got to Brown. SAT 960, and yet a top student. Brown has affirmative action admission policies for some seats, but as noted on p. 191 it does not do much to support such students once they get to campus. Suskind’s own explanation is on p. 197, and in the author’s afterword he says the Brown people did not know Cedric was the kid depicted in the earlier Wall Street Journal article.

Suskind’s explanation focuses on the things that helped Cedric navigate all the things that could have derailed him, or killed him. Mom and Church figure very large in this. But also, perhaps told in events but not explicitly noted by Suskind on p. 197, was the way he handled anger, the way he wanted himself to be on top (recall his experience on the church choir), and this too was part of the navigation tools he used to get through those dangers.

One participant reminded us of the laws passed in the last decade that outlaw affirmative action. The effects on who gets in to places like Berkeley was almost instant. (About the only place where state schools are still allowed to practice even minimal affirmative action is in professional graduate schools, such as the University of Michigan—which lost its court defense of undergraduate affirmative action, but won its defense of it in its law school.) This means it is places like the private schools, such as the Ivies, that can still practice undergraduate AA. Cedric got in just about the time those laws were passing.

We were asked to consider Cedric’s choices for ‘solid’ subjects, like math. They are tough classes. Suskind does not apparently get to the connection between the difficulties with historical references, such as not knowing about Winston Churchill. So maybe Cedric the solid subject student was neglecting social studies and history. But what Suskind really neglects, in that passage on 197 and generally, is an understanding of the cultural knowledge he does have, and that he did pick up in that place he was. True, Cedric has difficulty leveraging that at Brown. We see it crop up in some episodes in the book, such as when the Dorm students see him as cool, as the authority on some topics, and mark him off as the cool person to befriend. The story of how Cedric makes some of these choices, and how he emerges from it, can be much better told. The picture we get is that his background, his neighborhood, his entire social background, is all negative. In addition to 197, see p. 158.

Suskind presents us with a depiction of right and wrong that we might not to accept. A popular American value, its exceptionalism, is about how the country is right, and righteous in its rightness. Does Suskind buy into this, with his emphasis on the value of the Ivies, on the wrongness of all that is Cedric’s background? Hmmm, this might be insidiously joining the observations of the pathologies of black people and how an individual like Cedric can be helped so much by contact with whiteness. We don’t get much about the community strengths—the self-help mechanisms are probably there, but what do we read? Recall the scene where Barbara is getting put out, p. 346. Throughout the book where Cedric’s home and neighborhood are described, where are the helpful folks, the people who are good to each other?

How about we spend as much effort studying the pathologies of rich neighborhoods, of associating mostly with one’s class? One interesting idea—how a deep and rich education can lead to a “trained incapacity,” an inability to see important features of the world.

We can perhaps do some of this by looking at the limitations of the Ivies through the depictions of Cedric’s peers.

Conversation Recap for May 4, 2008

2008-05-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

We went through introductions, during which we learned that the amputee support group is up and running. The activities during Fair Housing Month are now done, although every month is fair housing month. We also heard the Pierce County Department of Community Services released its 2008 Homeless Survey, which is linked from within the Department’s web site, at http://www.co.pierce.wa.us/pc/abtus/ourorg/comsvcs/homeless.htm.

For many people, this is the storm before the calm….

We discussed some additional pieces of our documents, the introductory paragraph to the longer document, and the one-page “Welcome to the Conversation” piece. The group read through and suggested several changes.

Today we heard Sol’s story. The ensuing discussion crossed paths with many themes in the book we are reading—for example, the Prince Georges County public schools were closed for a decade after the Brown ruling in 1954.

To begin the book, A Hope in the Unseen, by Ron Suskind, we are looking at the first four chapters (100 pages). In chapter one Suskind describes a tough, intimidating situation for students, open hostility toward achievement in school. In chapter two the focus moves more to family life, the streets, and prison. In chapter three we get a more detailed introduction to many characters at school, particularly Cedric’s peers. Then in chapter four, we get the story of Cedric getting into the summer program at MIT.

Dexter started with a couple of excerpts. First, bottom of p. 20 to top of p. 21, where Cedric is talking with LaTisha. In this passage, the chapter theme is repeated, Ballou is a school where academic achievement has no social currency, and social status is withheld from the best students. We are reminded of Jonathan Kozol’s many books, including his Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (2005), where he reports this is the norm in poorly financed schools. [Here is a favorite passage from Kozol’s book: “One parent from a wealthy district observed of the funding inequalities, “We wouldn’t play Little League this way…. We’d be embarrassed. We would feel ashamed.”” (p. 55)] One dimension of this is about the standards applied to personal worth, who gets to set and enforce the standards, who gets defined as admirable and less admirable. Someone with experience in our local schools says this squares with local reports—the popular students in some schools are the mean students, not the students doing well in classes. Being smart is constructed as the albatross from The Ancient Mariner. Someone brought up Kozol’s book from 1992, Savage Inequalities, which reports the trends we are discussing and that form the backdrop for much of Suskind’s book. One person contested the notion of the mean students being the leaders—there is something else going on in the social order of schools.

To the question, Does this passage reflect what really happens, people in the room reported they have seen things like it. One of the features of stories we have heard is this: we hear characterizations of the people in these neighborhoods and schools as somehow toxic. We might want to watch the ways we jump to conclusions about what causes all of this. One person reported hearing a teacher say it would be better if a bomb was dropped on a certain section of a city with similar schools…. Kozol, in contrast, offers a very different explanation of the causes—we apply scary labels to people in part as a way to keep us at a distance, so we don’t have to ask whether individuals get real opportunities, whether the financing of schools supports a fair distribution of opportunities, and so on. [See below, the point called the ‘two-step.’]

One person described the culture of fear we see described in the schools as pervasive in the culture. It is not just in the schools, it is in the neighborhoods. Note one thing it supports—that distance may be reported obliquely in the book, something Suskind lets happen—that our attention latches on to the small number of students who might make it, and ignore the rest. Kozol won’t let that go, and keeps bringing it up. So far (we are only looking at the first four chapters) Suskind is not directly pointing this out.

On to chapter two. Some insights into parenting, a bit on working, church, the streets, the prison system, and we are left to reconsider the chapter one material—how does school function in this wider world? The place of school, the book seems to suggest, is the education of the young within this world…. and we have some clear tensions between the reality described and our sense of how it ought to be. So we are invited to draw out these relationships, and consider that schools can’t do this well if the surrounding institutions do not support it.

We look at the passage starting on the bottom of p. 30, going on to p. 31, the one that includes “by this reckoning, Cedric Lavar Jennings wasn’t so lucky,” and young men being left with “a hardened exterior masking deep insecurities.” Dexter offered this as Suskind’s account of how young boys turn in to black men in America.

One idea about how we take stories that seem to sum it up for us, and we use it to apply an answer to the problems described in Suskind’s book—beware of the ‘two step,’ of idealizing part of our own younger days and explaining the troubles of the present as due to the absence of those things we remember. We all might have memories of teachers to made a big difference in our lives—I sure do. I wonder where Mr. Best is now.

What Suskind has to offer is this: parenting, jobs, housing, church, neighborhoods, and prison are institutions that surround schools, and the troubles of the schools will not be fully explained by looking at things found in the schools.

If we ask, what would schools look like if we designed them for the society we have now, we get a long list of things that schools could be that addressed those many things mentioned in the previous paragraph.

We looked at Barbara, Cedric’s mom, and the school. She is in important ways walled off from the school. The forces she was working with require a huge effort to set up a number of things—child care, getting the necessary bills paid, lining up other forms of support her child needed—there are so many high risk intersections, where if things go in a slightly different direction so much can go wrong. So much time is required to just keep things from falling apart. Barbara turns out to be amazing, resourceful, and indefatigable.

We discussed some of Suskind’s depictions of low income life. Someone with experience with a foster care system said child abuse is endemic. Things just cost a lot more—recall the rent-to-own story that had the Jennings TV cost $1500. The safety net just isn’t there the way it was, it makes those small things we read Barbara doing all that much harder. (The story of Cedric going to college ends about the same time the 1996 ‘end welfare as we know it’ law was passed.

We were reminded several times that the element of fear is a huge part of the situation—kids trying to be intimidating so as ward off danger, forced to find strategies to find security. And we heard a story, from last night, of how it is possible to defuse the fear, change is possible. One of the things schools needs to do is to spread skills in defusing the skills.

We talked about the idea of system design. Look where we can go with this. Poverty might not be necessary. But it is part of the design of how we do things. So, for example, our levels of support—income support that is 60% of an adequate existence, a shelter system where people are allowed to sleep on a cot and not know if the cot will be available tomorrow, and other examples—choices that we make that guarantees some will live that way. We design poverty in. Different informed choices are possible. A shelter system can choose to house people permanently. We can make similar observations about changes in schools—how have we designed in these things, how can we design it differently?

Suskind does show there are a lot of schools that do produce well educated people who expect to learn, who expect to do well, the works. So we will want to see how the subsequent parts of the book is how the differences are treated. That is, can the good schools be reproduced in the toughest case neighborhoods? Jonathan Kozol likes to include such counterexamples in his books—if he describes a dysfunctional school, and explains the ways the dysfunctions are produced, and then gives an example of a school nearby where things work.

For our part, we also want to connect the discussions to how we can do something here where we live, and do something about Tacoma schools.

Next time, please have read chapters 5 through 10, pages 101-161.

Conversation Recap for April 27, 2008

2008-04-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Today we are going to look at the values and mission statements, hear a story from Keith, and begin talking about Ron Suskind’s book, A Hope in the Unseen.

We heard Keith James’ story. The ensuing discussion touched on the gift of resourceful parents and neighbors. We also talked about developing alternatives to the standard model of dealing with juvenile justice. Given the lack of public pressure on the legislature to develop anything else, programs have to be added on that work with the situations of kids poorly served. It turns out that infusing cultural competencies into an administrative system require leadership that has diverse perspectives—and this means not just hiring, for example, people of color, but also who understand and work to cultivate diverse perspectives. To get the state legislature to make changes will require a lot more public pressure.

The discussion turned to a comparison between Trinidad and US police system—the US was much later in applying the idea of community policing, and some of this may have been related to the comparatively late development of US police openness to women and diversity in leadership.

This brought up some of the ways that people developed understandings of colonialism in the period after WWII up to, say, 1970. For example, there was Mighty Sparrow’s song, Jean and Dinah, as a social protest art form. Some parts of the song were initially written as a store jingle, but it was adapted as commentary on the consequences of having a US military base on Trinidad. Some of its lyrics were quoted (this quotation lifted off of Wickipedia):

Jean and Dinah, Rosita and Clemontina
Round de corner posin'
Bet your life is something dey sellin'
But when you catch them broken [="broke"] you could get dem all for nuttin'
Doh make no row
De Yankee gone and Sparrow take over now

The discussion turned to a comparison of politics and social dynamics in Trinidad and in the US. We will no doubt be returning to this in the future. Several key figures in the development of our contemporary

We touched on Ron Suskind’s book, A Hope in the Unseen. We want to discuss it over the next three weeks. For those who may need to deal with a shortened version of the book, a file is available that is a collection of Suskind stories in newspapers that told parts of the story.

We turned to discuss the values and mission document, and thanked Callista for her work on it. We made some small changes, and discussed at some length the leadership issues, page 6. We characterized the document as “our social contract,” and as “made of clay, that we will periodically water.” It is a grounding for discussions of where we might go in the future. We might need an opening paragraph about what this document represents.
Something like this?

This document is the product of many discussions, and is offered in the spirit of a social contract that describes what we are and how we operate. The Conversation is an organic and fluid entity, and this document will evolve along with it. We will refer to it in discussions of where we might go in the future.

A suggestion to add something to the document was discussed and illustrated the ways it can serve as a grounding for discussions. Several people referred to the overall purposes of The Conversation, and at the same time how complicated are the connections among marginalized groups and the society. We also noted that one way of acknowledging our acceptance of the document, when that does happen, is to go around the room and each read part of the introduction describing our values.

Conversation Recap for March 23, 2008

2008-03-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Intros- 2 new participants who met Eve over the weekend and invited them to The Conversation.

Keith’s sister, Brandy’s Story

Girard, founded in 1848 by Stephen Girard who came to US in 1776. Gave all his money to found the school. The school was originally meant for white orphan males. In the 80s the school opened to females. Now the school is for low-income students from single parent families. Funded through the original trust funds. Located right in the middle of the city surrounded by an 8-foot wall, tuition is $36,000 per year. Students apply, much like a college application process. More about Girard here.

Story of Easter is a story of an itinerant prophet who challenged the status quo and died as a result. Those who followed him went to look for his body and couldn’t find it. It's the story of a person who gives sharp criticism of a society and that society tries to kill him and out of that ignites a movement.

Act II of When the Levees Broke

One participant remarked that alluded to in the film is the notion that the city of “sin” brought the tragedy on itself.

Another reiterated the reality of “on your own-ness”.

Our guest went to NO from Feb. 15-20. Something had told her not to believe the news reports from 2005. She got in touch with a community service group and traveled there to see for herself. She found that 3 years later, 9th Ward, St. Bernard Parish etc. it’s just as bad. People are still trying to survive in areas that no one should be living in. FEMA villages are depressing. Now that there are reports of toxics in these FEMA trailers, people have to move out and have nowhere to go.

Dexter picked up on the religious theme of God’s wrath cleaning up a city full of evil. Some of us might be surprised at how prevalent that thinking is.

America sees itself as the chosen nation in the world. The “Shining City on the Hill”. If you go into evangelical churches you will hear that God is doing a “new thing” and we (America) are the new thing. We are the new Israelites. When “we” introduced smallpox into the native communities, that was God “clearing the way.” The Christians viewed the “New World” as wilderness rather than as a group of nations because they brought that perspective from the Bible. Rev. Wright, when he says God damn America, he is following the tradition of the prophet Ezekiel by saying that God blesses America when it does right and God damns America when it does wrong. It’s hypocritical the outrage about Rev. Wright’s damning America because this happens in pulpits all across the country every Sunday.

We ascribe motives to God when we don’t want to take responsibility. When Europeans wanted to justify their wiping out of the Native people, they went to the Bible. The strong Europeans came and tamed this wild land.

One participant wondered if religious justification comes after the political action in a cynical fashion. But the response is that in America you cannot separate politics from religion.

Another participant said that she’s still not sure if religion is a tool of politics or vice versa.

Also mentioned was the danger of fundamentalism, whether it be Christian or Muslim. Our foreign policy is immoral—over a million Iraqis dead and our president telling us that the surge is a success and democracy is flourishing in Iraq.

One person said that a big part of the problem is in ascribing centrality to one’s self, either as an individual or a country or a political/economic system. A sign of maturity is to see one’s self outside of one’s self and see another’s perspective.

Another reminded us of the question asked in the beginning today—can we operate in truth with one another? There is an anatomy, a science and a politics around Katrina and nobody has it right. Therefore we ought to start with respect otherwise we devalue my perspective or your perspective.

Another’s thoughts were that she is a complex jumble. As a young girl she began to question religion because of how she saw her father attending church and smiling and being friendly and then being an angry tyrant at home. She’s now learning how to deal with the complexities, contradictions, hypocrisies, goods and evils embodied within her and that’s a personal journey of internal work.

Another talked about the Bible being a kind of psychic projection of all of humanity’s contradictions. She would like some direct instruction in Liberation Theology. A LT person might think about the people on the rooftops “walking on water” forsaken by the rest of the country might be a reminder about the evils of our government rather than the evils of New Orleans.

One person talked about viewing the Bible in layers rather than literally. Fear keeps us from being honest.

Another talked about the Old Testament versus the New Testament. If there were just one law of God it would be to love. That includes holding people up to being their best selves, of course who decides what that best self is? Some try to simplify it by going to the Bible (page 143, verse 2, King James version).

Dexter brought us to a close by making several general observations.

When we say that some people take the Bible too seriously by taking it literally, we are giving ground. A Liberation Theologian might say we take the Bible seriously because we take up the fundamental question of Jesus which is what do we do about poverty? What we should say is “you have a particular interpretation of the Bible and I have a particular interpretation.”

Liberation theology begins with the context and the Bible may inform you on that reality rather than those who say begin with the text and interpret life from there. Also it focuses on spirituality as an everyday material reality not an ethereal reality.

Liberation Theology says that liberation is from systems and structures of domination. Liberation theology believes that from the voices and experiences of the poor comes our own liberation. Everyday we bring with us our paradoxes and complexities and seek clarification together fro today.

Announcements:

April 12th Seeds of Compassion on behalf of the Conversation, Tom has made a request of 30 tickets

Thursday, March 27th at 6pm SoJust meeting at 414 S. Division Ln. (near 38th & Pacific)

Next Sunday at 1pm at the Mandolin, meet about 501c3

April 26th at 8pm Ebony Fashion Fair at Mt. Tahoma.

Friday May 2nd 7:30pm at Theater on the Square - Luke has co-written a series of pieces called Voices of the Americas. He is also creating a sponsorship fund to help pay for tickets.

Conversation Recap for March 16, 2008

2008-03-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

Emma and Abigail’s Stories

We watched “When the Levees Broke”

Katrina exposed problems.

Some struck by contrast between news coverage and reality. Overtly racist news coverage.

Frustration about inability of Americans to see how economic and political interests have no trouble sacrificing people.

One person who has participated in disaster planning is not surprised in some ways about how things went because disaster planning starts with a presumption of on your own-ness. You must survive on your own for at least a few days to a week and also, there are no disaster plans for beyond 90 days. There is no disaster planning that conforms to the expectations we have in our minds about help.

One member wondered about a comparison between the flood in Chehalis and New Orleans and the response.

Another wondered, when will we ever see achieve what we say about ourselves as being “one people?” Why didn’t we see more stories on the news about the heroism of everyday people?

Dexter’s closing thoughts:

The most significant question is what does it mean to live in what we call a society? What’s the role of gov’t, neighbors, elected officials, military? When you see commercials about the military, they can put up a city in a matter of days, they can land and put up a hospital in a matter of hours.

Successive administrations have reduced the role of gov’t. People always talk about how generous Americans are, our churches and charitable organizations give so much. But in Europe, they say “We don’t organize our society that way.” There is not the abject poverty there. We allow the poverty and then praise ourselves about how charitable we are.

In thinking about the expectation that individuals are on their own, the militia types have the argument that you are foolish if you don’t have a gun because you are on your own and you have to take care of yourself.

The way our society is structured creates situations like Katrina. We have to think about restructuring society and there are examples. A first step is divesting ourselves of the notion that our society is the best structured in the world. It’s not just because George Bush is incompetent that this happened but there is a structural problem.

We are not hapless victims. We can choose to think differently, act differently and challenge the news that leaves out stories that they don’t want to tell us.

Announcements

School Board will have some public presentations of 7 finalists for TPS Superintendent. They will publish their schedule on Tuesday.

The School Board meeting format has changed. Now devote 2 meetings per month for study sessions. For these they do not have comment cards and do not take public comment. This means the opportunity for public participation at meetings has been cut in half.

March 20th WA History Museum “War Made Easy - How Presidents and Pundits Spin

March 22nd Harry Todd Park GI Rights Rally Speakers, music, family friendly

Mar. 28th UWT Carwein Auditorium - Health Equity Summit begins with a PBS video called Unnatural Causes-Is Inequality Making Us Sick?

Shiloh Baptist Community Forum at 7:30 parents speaking out about how they and their children are treated in schools

Dates for MLK 09 planning have been booked first Wed. of each month, the first meeting will be in April.

Dexter brought up that we have talked repeatedly in the past about getting back to reading a book. He has several copies of “Hope in the Unseen.” Race & Pedagogy used it and agreed to pass it on to another group. We may decide to pass it along to the Maxine Mimms Academy when we finish.

Next 3 weeks continue watching “When the Levees Broke”

April 13- we will meet Temple Beth El. Special guest Rabbi who will talk about issues related to the multiracial coalition for civil rights.

April 20th finish Conversation document and V-Team assignments

April 26th Ebony Fashion Fair at Mt. Tahoma 8pm

April 27th discuss the book “A Hope in the Unseen”. It’s very inspirational about one individual’s grit in overcoming odds. Let’s not overlook the inspiration but let’s look at the structure that makes this kind of heroism necessary.

We now have the MLK event keynote posted on the Conversation blog and we also have copies on DVD.

We need a volunteer to take the lead on looking into a 501c3 study group. It was suggested that some of us meet with someone from the Non-Profit Center to get some preliminary info.

Conversation Recap for February 24, 2008

2008-03-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

Good morning. About 30 of us entered the Evergreen building under a thinly overcast sky, a pleasant 48 degrees Fahrenheit, a gentle breeze. Yet most of the gathering could tell something was up. Perhaps the more sensitive souls could tell the barometric pressure was rising (29.72 in. as we started). We welcomed some new participants who shared.

Some announcements:
• A PBS special, “Unnatural Causes,” a 4 hour series about the connection between health and inequality. It is scheduled to be broadcast on March 27, April 3, 10, and 17. BUT our local PBS broadcasters have not yet scheduled it. Hmmmm. Contact them at http://www.kcts.org/inside/contact/index.asp.
• The Fair Housing Center of Washington needs volunteers to do research into civil rights cases. Contact them at 253-274-9523, or at info@fhcwashington.org.
• The Rev. James Lawson will be in Tacoma. Here him speak Monday, Feb. 25, 7 pm at Shiloh Baptist Church; Tues. Feb. 26 12-1:30 at St. John’s Baptist Church; and Wed. Feb. 27 7 pm in the BHS room, above the University of Washington book store, 19th and Pacific.
• The second community forum for parents of kids who have issues with the way they have been treated by Tacoma Public Schools, will be March 17, 6:30 pm, at Shiloh Baptist Church. If you know parents of Tacoma schools students, please tell them.
• United for Peace of Pierce County has some speakers coming up: Friday Feb. 29, 7 pm, go to Kings Books to see David Smith-Ferri, who will be speaking about his encounters with people in Iraq. On Monday March 10, also at 7pm at Kings Books, hear David Bacon describe how the world economy “creates migration and criminalizes immigrants.” The whole UFPPC schedule of events is found at www.ufppc.org.
• Check out tacomafoodcoop.blogspot.com for a description of efforts to start a food coop here. A member of the organizing group, who among other things works at an organic farm in Puyallup, told us about the efforts.
• People doing work with nonprofit organizations, take note: Professor Callista Brown is teaching a course on Writing in Professional Settings, and during April and May the students will be working on projects from some local organizations. If you have some writing projects coming up, please come to the Conversation, or contact her directly at carltosb@plu.edu.
• One first time participant showed us a book he just published, You May Kiss the Bride: Now What? See it on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/You-May-Kiss-Bride-What/dp/1600373380/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203875759&sr=8-1.

A couple of weeks ago the Conversation discussed the use of the N-word. One impetus for discussing it was a participant, a teacher, assigning a book (Bodega Dreams, by Ernesto Quinonez) in her class that used the word repeatedly. Michael Dyson spoke at Pierce College a few months ago, and included a section on the topic. Part of his talk was also a response to the Bill Cosby/Alvin Poussaint. We watched a tape of part of his talk. As one participant said afterwards, “That was some performance.”

Among the topics we focused on, is his use of the N-word. As his talk demonstrated, its use taps quickly into many charged topics. Many of the comments were descriptions of experience with using and hearing the word, and their own rules about using it. Nearly all of those who spoke referred to feelings and reactions that raised contradictions. Just about everyone has their own set of rules about use, and understand rules are needed due to the ways the word affects others. Most people referred to the importance of not losing sight of the historical and critical dimensions of its use.

Some of the comments were about Dyson’s use of the N-word, and objections that he may have violated some rules that are there to protect black people. An interview with Michael Eric Dyson about several things, including his use of the N-word, is available online from the DemocracyNow site, from July of 2007.

The word is part of the construction of reality—so we will see words and their use change, just like the rest of reality. The rules surrounding this will be contested. We were given some demonstrations of similar changing rules. Sorry, no film on this, you had to be there.

As part of wrapping up the discussion, we were invited to reopen the question of whether we want to share what goes on here more widely—such as on YouTube. Last week’s discussion with Dr. Maxine Mimms, for example, was a big deal, and 28 people were able to be part of it. So one issue is whether we want to offer some of the discussions we have as models for a wider audience. So we need to think about this.

Conversation Recap for February 17, 2008

2008-02-18T20:43:00.000-08:00

First we checked –in in the style of ALF (American Leadership Forum)

New jobs, artistic endeavors (music recording, screenplay readings), family health challenges, etc.

Noah’s Story

Themes that came out were about love of nature, colonialism (beginning with colonization of nature and then people) and teaching about both.

Maxine Mimms and members of her staff, Darlene Hilyard and Vanessa Brown, from the Maxine Mimms Academy were present.

Dexter asked Maxine to tell some of her story. She told many humorous and poignant anecdotes about her childhood, her formal and informal education and how she came to found Evergreen-Tacoma. These notes could never do justice to all that she shared with us.

Growing up in the segregated South she never heard anything about white people, never learned that white people were superior because her parents made sure that the stories of white supremacy insignificant.

She told of how Evergreen-Tacoma started. How she had to de-program herself to get rid of the “standard” in order to see and develop the genius in her urban adult students.

Her advice—live a life of applause, celebrate the indigenous genius in every person. Know yourself and stay exotic to self. Something about you is great; bring that greatness into the classroom. She tells her students, stop being absent. With your presence you challenge the paradigm of schooling that thrives without your presence.

Teachers are trained to be hostile, to see education as a commodity so as early as third grade, we begin to rank, sort and eliminate.

A participant asked, how do we carve out a place and a space to create something like what was created in Evergreen-Tacoma at the K-12 level?

The key in the K12 system is we have to talk with the unions as well as parents and teachers about how to applaud differences, and not just those defined by skin color, but differences in thinking and behavior. Love that which is unpredictable.

We should ask those whom we’ve failed what we could do differently, but we always only deal with those who’ve succeeded.

A comment was made that while our society is so based on “instant everything”, everyone, we should remember that this school was started in a kitchen. Maxine said that even though some have asked her not to say she started the school in a kitchen anymore because that brings to mind the image of Aunt Jemima, she says it had to start in the kitchen, that’s where the love is; that’s where the pots get stirred; where the experimentation with ingredients and spices occurs.

The question was asked about Maxine’s relationship with the churches throughout her work. She talked about the support and dialogue that’s been there because people have known each other a long time. One of the things that is problematic in the church today is the disconnect between church and intellect. Think about it: there are 12 grades, 12 months, 12 disciples, 12 gates of heaven. Our pastors need to be here in this Conversation. They need a place where they can think and share and heal.

Dexter mentioned that we’ve been in discussion with public radio (KXOT). He asked Maxine about developing a program of some set conversations on the radio and Maxine being the first person to be in conversation with him on the air.

Maxine said she would be happy to but also cautioned that she remembers what happened with Columbia when the architecture and MBA students began studying the “problems” of Harlem. Now UWT is here and it’s a 4-year school and it’s studying the Hilltop. Now the Hilltop is changing.

Tom asked for a bite-sized commitment of something we each could commit to helping the MMA kids.

Come visit after 1pm, or for lunch between 12-1pm, give compliments, emails & letters. Email address is vbrown@maxinemimmsacademy.org. They also need bus passes.

Announcements:

March 8th Maxine Mimms birthday party at Evergreen-Tacoma

UFPPC Speaker Series (see link on right)

Courage & Renewal – upcoming education/training opportunities (see link on right)

We went around and each gave a final word. They were:

Commitment
Received
Extravagant
Marvelous
Healing
Assistance
Awareness
Enjoyment
Diligence
Enrichment
Courage
Love
Faith
Divine-Church-Today
Enlightenment
Courage
Synergy
Can
Do

Recap for February 10, 2008

2008-02-10T18:55:00.000-08:00

Carl’s Story

Themes discussed had to do with the issue of tracking. The notion of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps was mentioned as being a term that is infused with hope and possibility and tracking strips people of that. The idea that success breeds and feeds hope is an important one.

Dexter and Amy talked about their experience in her class talking about the “N” Word. Dexter took the students to 1837 to establish a concentrated intense discussion about naming in the free Black community in terms of what Black people should call themselves. Many argued to stop calling themselves African because that calls up images of people who are savage and who belong back in Africa.

Dexter wanted to let the students know that this debate is not new and that the “N” word has a history and further that names matter. Once we accept a name it begins to influence our identity. Samuel Cornish bemoaned, that despite what these blacks called themselves, “their FRIENDS and their FOES, in the convention, in the Assembly and in the Senate; through the pulpit and the press, call them nothing else but NEGROES.” (Colored American (New York) 15 March 1838; rpt. in Black Abolitionist Papers 3: 263). (Dexter B. Gordon, Black Identity 109).

Then jumped to the Kramer YouTube video. We watched it also. When asked for reactions, one participant said that she fully expects at any given time to be called that word by a white person each time she goes out the door.

Another talked about how frightening it is to realize that all one has to be is black to elicit that rage and where does that rage come from?

Some were astonished that no one took the mike away from him. Another participant mentioned that young people are often quick to justify their use of the word as an endearment, but never talk about the rage in their use of the word when they commit violence against one another.

Dexter observed that inside the classroom all the girls and most of the guys thought the word was not ok to use. There were only a few that said it was not a problem. One of the girls said that she didn’t like the word and she used to say something each time but it got worse, so now she doesn’t say anything anymore, but she still doesn’t like it.

Another reaction was how the video shows the whole history coming up right through him and was also struck by the way “Kramer” said at the end “That’s what happens when you interrupt a white man.”

Amy mentioned that even though the kids “said” that the word didn’t bother them, she pointed out to them that they all reacted when hearing the word on the videos she and Dexter showed.

Another participant talked about the first time he publicly heard the word used and it was when he was a kid and with a friend of his who was black.

We watched another clip, this time form the show “Boston Public” in which two friends, one white and one black, who are overheard by another black student to engage in calling each other the “N” word. When he objects, a fight ensues.

There was a question about whether the discussion in the high school classroom turned at all to how to deal with interrupting use of the “N” word. Another brought up how sometimes it’s relatively easy and other times very difficult to interrupt use of racial slurs.

One member talked about a huge problem of teachers using the “N” word against their students at Cleveland High School in Seattle. It would be very interesting if students from around the Puget Sound came together to discuss this.

Another person mentioned that he thinks white people have a fascination with the word and even though they say they don’t use it, they often do, but “only in educational settings” where the use of the word is being discussed or for context of a story. He said we should question whether white people have the right to use it, even in an educational setting and still say that it should not be used.

Some participants talked about how communication can be misconstrued, where another person said that, yes—but, we all know what respect is.

Another person said he wasn’t sure that people were all that clear on basic respect—taking the “F” word as an example, which he is very offended by and that seemingly everyone uses.

Finally a participant talked about even when people know what not to say and use code words. She also talked about Beverly Tatum’s of the moving walkway at the airport as an analogy for racism. To be an ally against racism is to turn around and walk against the direction.

Dexter suggested finally that we all take a look at language. He would also like to invite us to interact with those we might feel a little uncomfortable. And if we are going to be people of justice, we must intervene, especially when it’s not about us. And we’ve got to interrupt injustice anywhere we see it.

Social relationships are developed by people and they can be changed by people.

Announcements:

Feb. 23rd and March 2nd New Orleans Monologues at Theatre on the Square to purchase tickets, click here.

Feb 24th WA History Museum Panel Discussion on Minority Health Disparities

March 10th King’s Books Speaker Series David Bacon

Feb. 26th 7pm Pierce College-Puyallup Langston Hughes Project-Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz-Live Music. Spoken Word. Visual Images

Feb 29th United for Peace Pierce County & King's Books present Davis Smith Ferri and his multimedia presentation on his encounters with Iraqi people. Poetry reading and slide show included. For info in this and more UFPPC events at King's Books, click here.

Mar. 5th 7pm also, at Pierce-Puyallup Ngugi Wa Thiongo Details

Monday Nights from 7-8:30pm, United for Peace and Justice hosts a book discussion series at Mandolin Cafe at the Mandolin Café

March UWT is having a panel on Health disparities.

For a multicultural experience-Blue Mouse Theater's International Sister City Film Festival, going on now, every Thurs. a film from one our sister cities, plus food. For details, click here.

April 26 4pm at Mt. Tahoma H.S. Ebony Fashion Fair-Sponsored by the Tacoma Urban League Guild and is the main revenue generator of the Guild. With tickets you also get subscription to Ebony or Jet.

Conversation Recap for February 3, 2008

2008-02-07T20:53:00.000-08:00

During introductions we welcomed some new participants.

This morning we heard Cathy’s story.

Watch for her book, working title “Standing on Both Feet.” Some of the stories in the book were parts of the story today.

The discussion of her story brought up the views people have of personal identity. Some of us grew up in an era which emphasizes assimilation, and when I was illegal in many states for people classified as different races to marry (the Supreme Court case overturning such laws, Loving v. Virginia, was in 1967—at the time 16 states had such laws).

Two kinds of stories that caught the imagination of the group—stories about kids recognizing features of personal identity, and how couples meet. The working title of the book project, ‘standing on both feet,’ resonated strongly. It came from a man’s story about identity, when he finally felt it was clear, and acceptable, to be from two different backgrounds.

The patterns of the stories told and briefly described were many, but one constant seemed to emerge—we are still living with the “one drop rule,” in which people find identity imposed on them and, when things go wrong, is the focus of social judgment. Several stories featured the reaction of families when told about an intention to date or to marry. One participant commented that the USA is seems to be hard wired to prejudice. Start discussing the gene pool, see what happens. Thinking of race as a biological category has many assumptions that quickly dissolve upon examination. Readers may want to see Joseph L. Graves, Jr., The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America (NY: Dutton, 2005). On the history of natural scientists using the concept of race, continuing to the present use by social scientists, see John P., Jr. Jackson and Nadine M. Weidman, Race, Racism, And Science: Social Impact And Interaction (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).

Another focus: the people who appear in advertising, especially the use of couples in advertising. Watch for the patterns.

One feature of the book is about how these patterns are not set in stone, that they are linked to who has power. They shift over time. If Obama receives the Democratic nomination, wait and see how this is publicly discussed. He will be a vehicle for carrying many visions of race in America.

Susan led a presentation on the documents that describe the Conversation’s content, operating protocols, and messages to the public. She distributed copies of the documents. We broke up into groups to discuss them. Remember this is a revision of an earlier draft which we discussed in groups, and this draft was edited to incorporate the comments from the earlier group suggestions.

We met in groups for more than a half hour, and reported a number of suggested changes. These will be incorporated into the document.

One suggestion that emerged was for The Conversation to produce a descriptive list of valuable resources—books, videos and other things that Really Made A Difference for participants.

One announcement was that Group 6 was the best.

A rabbi at Temple Beth El will be inviting Conversation members to join in a discussion this coming March, probably on a Sunday.

The V-team has discussed the possibility of the Conversation making itself a 501(c)(3) group, and has decided it is time to do that. This status makes the group tax exempt (the term ‘501(c)(3) is a reference to the US Code dealing with the Internal Revenue Service, 26 USC sec. 501(c)), makes it possible for donations to be tax deductible for donors, and enables us to handle financial matters ourselves. The rules require such groups to have articles of incorporation, complete with bylaws governing their conduct, and an application for that to the Internal Revenue Service. They make the decision as to whether 501(c)(3) status is granted.

The main restriction on 501(c)(3) organizations is that they are not to influence elections to public office. Some lobbying is permitted, as is education of individuals about issues. If we get Really Big we will be allowed to spend as much as a million dollars on lobbying….

Recap for January 27, 2008

2008-01-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

2 New members welcomed.

We heard Kristi as she read 3 short, poignant and humorous stories recounting events while vigiling against the war.

Feedback on RtV event:

Program went off particularly well; the timing of performances. Wish we had more sophisticated coverage. Some things weren’t highlighted that could have been. It’s too bad there weren’t more people. We need to find ways to take control of our message and figure out how we want to disseminate it.

Suggestion: We have some good footage now and could use that to make a 30 second commercial for next year.

One member talked about being very impressed. It was evident that people worked very hard on the program and no one abused their time on the stage. It was a really phenomenal mix of types of performances and images. 2 minor details: The fund pitch could have been a little better thought out, such as people might have written checks if they knew they could and who to make them out to. Second thing is, it would have been good to have a way for people to keep in touch, like a sign-in with emails.

One person noticed that people didn’t want to leave afterwards—perhaps the little room could have been used for a coffee and mingle session as a way for people to connect.

At one point we had projected mobilizing the business district of downtown such that we get support from the cafes and restaurants and after the event folks attending could spread out and continue the conversation in these cafes and restaurants. The Varsity Grill, where many of us went this past Sunday, expressed being very warm to the idea. We could have 2012 perform afterward at One Heart and the youth could follow them there.

We should consider doing a mini version in some of the high schools. One Wilson high school student in attendance mentioned that Wilson is very isolated and cut off. There weren’t even any MLK programs there.

The keynote may be aired on Rainier cable TV and possibly Comcast as well.

We should produce a dvd that we each can have a copy of that we can them share with our circles as well has make it available for purchase for a contribution.

The Broadway Center has a connection allows them to meet with 4 principals from school districts in the Pierce County area. Perhaps an excerpt could be shown at one of these meetings with someone from the Conversation could be there. Another suggestion would be to send our contributors a copy. One of our members has a friend who does dvd duplication. Our resident multimedia expert suggested that there be a committee to make some decisions about these different projects—30 second commercial, 20-minute presentation for the high school principals, etc. The RtV program could really be a piece in a curriculum for the schools.

Another suggestion would be to put it up on the web, i.e. youtube.

One person asked if the Race & Pedagogy Institute might be a clearinghouse for this kind of material.

We watched about 25 min. of Dexter’s keynote so we could see the video and sound quality. This brought out some questions about how it is to watch and hear oneself speaking and when is the moment that you feel that the “spirit” or the audience is with you.

The question was asked what if we’re refused in the high schools? Dr. King told the truth and we have been elevated because he told the truth, not because he was successful. We have to tell the truth also.

In terms of the issue of who is going to love the children enough to have high expectations, a point was brought up about the challenges for white teachers who challenge their black and brown students who sometimes face criticism, whether it’s from the internalized racism of colleagues of color or situations in which people hear half of the story and then the white teacher is accused of racism.

The answer is that you must show all that you care about the students and then when you make demands of them it is clear that it’s from love and care. You must tell the truth to students but with the support behind it or it’s pretty close to meanness and serves only to salve your own conscience.

One of our younger members mentioned that the message of popular culture is that going to college is to get a good job, going to church is to pray for success and money. We need to find ways to make the message of education and justice and equality as large as that message about material gain. That education should be about learning about who we are and how we should be with each other

Dexter responds that that is the agenda for us right now. He invites us to take this moment to dream again.

Production of inequality in schools is just like planned obsolescence is with electronics. The system says there are some people who are not supposed to make it and that is what keeps this particular economy going.

Announcements:

Courage & Renewal

Focus the Nation

Race & Pedagogy mtg.

2012 Feb. 16th opening for Saul Williams “Why Africa Matters”

Steve Nebel playing at Rhapsody in Bloom 7pm Wednesday Jan 30

May 2nd “Voice of the Americas: A Post 911 Millennial”

Sen Franklin proposing a bill re energy usage and understanding that involves POC and youth in the area of sustainability. SB 6605

Education group will be meeting at Cherlyn’s at 4022 N. 27th until the end of May. We need to continue to challenge the notion that the superintendent search criteria which resulted in the last superintendent is not sufficient for the the search again.

Reminder about the Ebony Fashion Fair.

Korbett would like information to put into the Message Magazine.

Redeeming the Prophetic Vision

2008-01-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

Click poster for a larger view

Recap for December 23, 2007

2007-12-23T14:26:00.000-08:00

We began with introductions, and an announcement that the magazine Color Lines has a section called “The Innovators,” in its January/February issue. It features Rosalind Bell. Subscribe, information at colorlines.com.

Dexter announced he is going on sabbatical leave from the University, starting in May. One of his topics is a group of Rastafarians who call themselves the Nazarites, who were in the town where he grew up. He told part of his story today.

We discussed Jamaican words and phrases, the odd twists and turns we make in our working lives, the world of air-traffic controllers. We also noted the meeting of moral commitment and social action found in liberation theology—asking questions like, if the church is so rich, why are the people so poor? We went on for some time learning many detailed features of Dexter’s life. This note taker, keeping with our common practice, does not write down the details of the story teller—but let me say the Members were fascinated and the story-teller was good natured in sharing those details. One feature Members commented on and asked about: ‘blue streak’ language was part of several of the stories, but Dexter doesn’t curse. So the challenge was to convey the flavor and impact of the words without saying them. Well done.

Callista spoke to us about a Tibetan Buddhist holiday, Losar, which is the celebration of the new year. The holiday predates the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet, part of the Bön (focused on nature). The founding story for the holiday is about a woman who discovered the passage of time marked by the cycle of a fruit tree—many cultural features have something to do with the rhythms of agriculture, or management of water. The ancient practice of linking the new year to forces of nature is at the center of Losar. Among the way Tibetans adopted Buddhism—the local deities, or spirits that acts as place protectors, had to be converted to Buddhism before they would allow monasteries to be built and for people to practice it. The holiday is thus a Buddhist appropriation of an earlier tradition.

Preparation for the holiday begins with weeks of purifying chants, and is marked by a central celebration at the Potala in Lhasa. For the last few hundred years this central celebration was officiated by the Dalai Lama. People petition enlightened beings like the Dalai Lama, who is said to be a reincarnated version of an earlier realized being, to stick around in samsara (the limited and ignorant world in which we live) to encourage us in the right direction. It continues for more than one day.

Buddhism is transmitted in lineages, and the one Callista shared with us is a form of the Shambhala tradition. In that tradition Losar is called ‘Shambhala Day.’ Their way of celebrating the holiday includes a chant added to daily practice. The tradition is rather precise about numerical expectations for the chants, so the more the merrier in celebrations (100 people each saying a chant 10 times produces 1,000 chants). The chants are a path to transforming negativity—the chant itself is not a magical incantation, it is a way to get the chanter out of their usual tendencies and circumstances. One way to put it: clean up your life. Start with the house, and do it with the internal stuff as well, such as grudges. The path will lead, hopefully, to kind and direct conduct, to openness to your own awareness, transform one’s personal energy, and to paying attention to the details of our lives.

Some questions were about the “kind and direct conduct,” and how some folks who claim to be direct are actually being damaging or aggressive. One teacher (Trungpa Rinpoche) described this way of being direct with the phrase “idiot compassion.” The notion is, one is being direct for themselves, not really doing it for the other person.
In Callista’s Shambhala tradition, they perform a purification ritual (which includes the burning of juniper leaves and working with the smoke), meant to dispel negativity and encourage wisdom, a liturgy about overcoming materialism, and a feast ceremony that explicitly encourages people to not seek anything for themselves (it is not an opportunity for networking). Some of us has read an account of how a Navaho use of ritual and art was astonishingly close to Tibetan practices, so much so that a group of Tibetans encountering a group of Navaho thought the latter were Tibetan.

One question was about the term ‘spiritual materialism.’ One of her teachers believed Americans are too often drawn to Buddhism as a Thing To Be, as in “I am a Buddhist.” The search for personal aggrandizement, or seeking things in one’s life as part of a yearning to be separate and special, is entirely missing the point. So, spiritual materialism is a warning about that.

One question noted the account of Buddhism sounds a lot like leading a healthy life. The response included the idea that the Buddha was not a god, he was a human being—and so being Buddhist is about learning to become a human being. One early attraction to Buddhism—the notion that when someone is pursuing you, challenging you, is seen as a teacher, because it shows you how you encounter the world (the story of the monks being chased after the invasion by China).

A member asked about how that story is connected to what we try to do here in the Conversation. That response, seeing challenges as teachers, is called ‘sacred world.’ If we find an unsacred part of the world, say, features of the color line in the USA, we try to find the places we can work with. And when we acknowledge we have not yet found the point we can work with, we look for people who seem to have found it, and learn from them.

In response to one question, Callista noted that all the things we find in Christianity—bureaucracy, turf battles, doctrinal disputes, corruption, and so on—you would find all of it somewhere in Buddhism as well. One nice phrase: “the center of trade is also the center of plunder.” There is wealth that accumulates when things get institutionalized, and issues arise around what to do with it.

Several members spoke to the notion of knowing, or becoming aware of, self. This is connected to the way institutions channel our energies, and make some outcomes more likely. Another feature of it is the connection to social action—what is the point of pursuing personal enlightenment without some kind of social reverberation?

Martin Luther King’s notion of redemptive suffering is a similar challenge to the self—one part is understanding how you encounter the world, and one part of it is a call to live in the world and attempt to reduce the causes and conditions of suffering.

Announcements:

April 26 is the Ebony Fashion Fair.

January 15th 7 pm at Pierce college, , Michael Chabon, author of “Yiddish Policeman’s Union.”

March will be the Dine Out for Life to support the PC AIDS foundation.

The 2012 CD goes great in the automobile stereo. Awesome. We got ours from Keith.

Tacoma Art Museum, Threads that Bind,

December 26, 10 am, School Board will have a study session on the Superintendent search.

Second Sunday Salon will meet January 13. See the website at www.ufppc.org. That website also has notices of other speakers about local war resistance efforts and Iraq refugees, on January 18 and January 24.

January 9, a panel discussion on contemporary issues with a civil rights coalition, flyer passed around. This emerged out of an examination of progressive white and communities of color, noting a separation that arose a long time ago. This is an initial step in an effort to find constructive steps to take here in Tacoma.

The YWCA sends thanks for the support and gifts the group gave in previous weeks.

Anyone with ideas for who to ask for financial support for the MLK Jr. event on January 20, let the organizing committee know. Make out a check to Associated Ministries, with the memo line note “MLK 2008” to make a tax deductible contribution.

Friday December 28, at Mandolin Café, on 12th, Record Hop/Sock Hop MLK Fundraiser. 7:30-midnight,
Rosalind has tickets.

See http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/default.html to see the notice for the PBS show that will look at the connections between inequality and health.

Reza Aslan, the internationally acclaimed author and scholar, will deliver the first lecture of the 2008 Swope Endowed Lectureship on Ethics, Religion, Faith, and Values at University of Puget Sound. The talk is scheduled for Thurs., Jan. 31, 7 pm, free tickets from the info desk in the UPS student center.

Conversation Recap for December 16, 2007

2007-12-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

We tried a new check-in routine, where everyone was asked for a paragraph about what is going on in life—joys, challenges, drains, hopes. We learn a lot about people from a short introduction. Everyone showed up, but we are on different trajectories. At the end of each introduction, the convention is to say, “and I’m in.” What we mean by this: we are fully present, in our discussions here.

We welcomed back a couple of members who were elsewhere for a while, tending other obligations, including the life threatening kind. Man, it is good to say welcome back. And we welcomed a new member to the Conversation.

After the check-in, we talked about some of the issues that came up. One experience many members shared was a child who had the opportunity to go do college, but did not do so or decided to drop out. Message to all kids: Parents feel this, really hard.

For a while we have been planning to see Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. We scheduled it so we could see the New Orleans Monologues first. We planned on doing it today, but it will take a little more time than we have this morning. And, it would be good to do it with the author of the New Orleans Monologues, so we can discuss the writing of projects like this.

For your information, When the Levees Broke is a documentary released in late 2006, and its “four acts” run 255 minutes. It won an Emmy for best director, a Peabody award, the Venice film festival Human Rights Network award, and others.

Conversation Recap for December 9, 2007

2007-12-09T14:22:00.000-08:00

It began to snow as we got underway today.

We began with a video on the Bill Cosby/Alvin Poussaint program on the program, Meet The Press. They wrote a book called “Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors,” which one review calls “a three-pronged hybrid advocating increased black self-determination and government accountability.” The book has spurred a lively discussion, to say the least—the review in The Nation describes the argument and comparisons to books by Tavis Smiley and Michael Eric Dyson. (Your note-taker could not find the video on the Meet The Press web site, but you can read the transcript of the interview here. Pasted into a Word file, it runs to 16 pages.)

Cosby and Poussaint talked about many things—the host of Meet the Press, Tim Russert, questioned them about unmarried mothers and children born to unmarried parents, and Cosby said we should start “firstly” with racism—systematic racism that keeps people from getting an education, and many other things. Among the topics they quickly mentioned: high school graduation rates, the number of people in prison and the incarceration rate in the United States, ideas in popular culture and in the media—it was truly broad. Russert emphasized their criticism of black popular culture, not their suggestion the discussion also include, let alone begin with, racism.

At one point, Cosby said this: “If you really understand what Bill Cosby is saying, if you really listen, he’s saying, “Get an education. Drive your children with love and care, and they will feel confidence when they go to school. Build a confidence about yourself and what you can control, and then you will be able to fight the systemic and the institutional. You will care more about what you do and what is done to you.” I’ve said that over and over.”

At one point, Poussaint said this: “ I think one of the things we emphasize in the book is that to make things happen, to bring about change, that you have to be an activist of some sort because things will just not happen for you. You have to go out and, and make demands, you have to get involved, you have to vote, that it just will not come. And you have the power to do that if you come together and you unify as a community and begin to talk about what we need to have a better community and better conditions for all black children.”

In the discussion, one member described a conversation she had with Michael Eric Dyson. He told her he has no disagreement with many of the things Cosby says, yet the celebrity that everyone knows is emphasizing the failures and dysfunctions in black families and communities. So the problem is not the message, but with Bill Cosby using his celebrity status to focus on the problems of black people, and could better balance it with more thorough discussion of white peoples’ roles in all of this. Here is a Dyson quote from that Nation review linked above: “Bill Cosby is a famous black guy who has a bully pulpit the size of the world. It's global. He puts his colossal foot on the vulnerable necks of poor people, and as a result of that we don't have a balanced conversation,”

One member noted that Cosby no longer lives in Philadelphia. If the successful leave neighborhoods, who is left to do the work and provide the examples he describes? Plus, who is his audience? Who is picking up the book and reading it? Who is watching Meet The Press? The member raised the comparison of Cosby going where the problem is found, instead of the big audience found on MSNBC and the book tour. The member inquired about his motivation.

Another member took issue with questioning his motivation, and argued the issue is what is the truth of the matter, of what needs to be done.

Another member thanked Bill Cosby for letting him off the hook, (as a white man)* and having no responsibility for any problems, and allowing him to sit on the sidelines. He suggested Cosby’s argument does not present any risk to the power structure.

Many of the comments emphasized the balance or lack of balance in the Cosby/Poussaint presentation. This is a conversation that few people encounter quiescently—Cosby and Poussaint touch many hot buttons.

One member said she agreed with every thing he said, but that he comes across as laying responsibility for racism onto the shoulders of black people.

One member said she continually observes whites doing all the things Cosby and Poussaint describe as distinctively black behaviors. Also, the dialogue stigmatizes single parent families, which means mostly women as head of families. There are countries with lots of women-headed households where you don’t see the differential outcomes—because there are features of the way work, school and social supports are organized that help people take care of each other.

Another member reminded us that the number one reason people end up single is domestic violence. Transformation is needed…. and be wary of talking about the problem as if the transformations are all needed in the black community.

One member described his own path to some of the things Cosby talked about, and emphasized that there are other paths than Cosby describes. His own mentor is completely missed in Cosby’s analysis.

Someone asked what all is Bill Cosby doing. He has a website about community things.

Several members emphasized that the real work is in the how, how to get from where we are to that better society.

One member expressed some pleasure at there being some active changes going on, that she sees a lot of people moving beyond a focus merely on personal responsibility. There are things to do as parent, as mentor, as activist, and find ways to do something.

Note: Almost an hour more of conversation continued after our note taker left at the formal ending hour of just a bit after 11am. The following are notes about that 2nd hour.

As stated in the notes on the first hour, most of the dialogue revolved around whether or not Cosby & Poussaint put too much emphasis on the “personal responsibility” angle and whether or not we should just take “facts” that they lay out and figure out how to address them. On member, talked of frustration about the focus on the breakdown of the black family as the root of all as well as the implication that it is the fault of black men who desert their families and then black women who can't or won't do an adequate job of raising the children. She talked about how slavery split the family--husbands and wives, parents and children and who's responsible for that breakdown of the black family? During Jim Crow segregation when fathers had to seek work, often times far from home and who's responsible for that breakdown of the black family? If one continues up to today with the prison industrial complex imprisoning many fathers and the welfare system creating a situation in which it makes economic sense for a father to be absent, indeed the welfare system will not provide for children of present fathers, so the jobless, once again, must seek work often far from home. Who, again, is responsible for this breakdown of the black family?

Most members, albeit to varying degrees, agreed with virtually everything C & P said, however those critical of the message made the points that, a) the arguments they make are the ones that are most comfortable and comforting to the system of white privilege and that if they had, in fact taken on the “personal responsibility” of white people for taking on racism, the book and it’s authors probably would never even get on a show like Meet the Press and b) those that emphasize taking on personal responsibility are often the same people who, when the “made it” left their communities rather than staying to mentor and help to pull others along with them. One young member challenged groups that purport to exist to support black political and economic enfranchisement yet since he’s become a member has yet to be invited to lunch or ever even asked about how he is doing and what assistance could be provided. He made the point that this is true even though he is already working to transform himself and should therefore be easy to work with. What about those youth left behind in the communities C & P are talking about, who have very few models and mentors left?

Members of this group are very active in mentoring youth, but all agreed that they too often represent the exception. Some feel that Cosby’s message is just that—where we can, we should take responsibility. The problem is, with whom does that personal responsibility lie? The quote comes to mind--“To whom much is given, much is expected.” It seems that many see Cosby & Poissaint as saying that to whom little or nothing is given, much is expected and those who benefit the most from the way our society is structured bear little responsibility for mitigating it’s effects.

*The second notetaker felt it was important to the context of this comment to reveal that the speaker was a white male.

Conversation Recap for December 2, 2007

2007-12-08T14:02:00.000-08:00

We opened with introductions, and welcomed three new members. Nice full room.

Today we heard Karen’s story.

The discussion brought out several interesting comparisons. Tacoma has changed rather dramatically over the last forty years—from goat and horse farms in Northeast to its present situation; the sense of community shared among people in the small-town atmosphere, which can cut across class lines; it is important for everyone to feel they are valuable members of a community; AND, the New Orleans Monologues is one of those very best things about Tacoma.

We heard from the education group. The discussion at first centered on the group’s website, which keeps track of issues and events. See it at http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/tacoma_schools_policy.htm.
We heard that after this last Thursday’s meeting offered a ray of hope. Several additional meetings were scheduled:
• Dec. 6, Student achievement: 4:30-8 p.m. Thursday. A 26-minute video of a student summit on diversity, leadership and learning will be shown at 4:30 p.m. to set the tone for the discussion.
• Leadership and the search for a new superintendent: The week of Dec. 10, with day and time to be determined.
• Planning, including upcoming contract negotiations with teachers: The week of Dec. 17.

An interesting feature of these meetings is that the public is engaging with the Board. This has been an issue the education group has raised with the Board several times.

One member asked about whether the Tacoma school district has been informed of alternative approaches to engaging the public in policy and change. One way to do this is to bring to light the practices of other districts. Maybe we can produce a checklist of best practices, with examples.

We went over some school reforms, and the content of today’s policy discussions seem to be regularly referring to evidence. This is a hopeful sign. The Board also seems to be embracing the idea of opening itself to public participation, and there are signs they are learning how to do this. It might be that school board members are reinterpreting their job descriptions. The norms were rather passive before. And it is rather clear that the participation of groups in Tacoma school politics—the education group of the Conversation, the Tacoma Ministerial Alliance, and others—is making this difference. One way to think about it: the Board becomes a mirror of its community. An engaged community might produce an engaged Board. Remember the Board meetings are not broadcasted in any way, such as the way other meetings are on CTV. So this community influence on the Board occurs only when we walk in the door for the meetings, and they only hear from us if we come before the meeting begins and fill out one of the blue ‘wish to comment’ cards.

One member pointed out there are many opportunities for school board members to be aware of best practices. If board members do not know them, it seems like a sign of not doing the work needed to do the job well.
One member described Board member motivations—that this largely voluntary job is a source of community status for members, the opportunities for public ceremonies of a symbolic nature. We should reconstitute the design of the Board to focus on what it should—what is happening with the kids.

A general point about sloppiness of Board work: an illustration from a report on the achievement gap, presented at a meeting of the group that went to the Harvard program. A very badly constructed graph actually distracted attention to the important questions—and when this was pointed out to District officials they elided the issue. This was presented as an indication of the lack of rigor on the part of administrators.

A book came up in our discussions, David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (a new edition in paperback from Harvard University Press, ASNB13: 978-0674637825). One reviewer said the book is a very good history, PLUS forcefully makes the point that urban schools were designed, on purpose, to be this way—impersonal, bureaucratic, and unequal. It pays special attention to the pitfalls in looking for One Best Way to address an issue, and cautions about putting too much confidence in lists of Best Practices.

There doesn’t seem to be good mentorship about doing the job of school board member.

We heard about one dismal moment at the School Board meeting last Thursday: one Board member asked if there is agreement on the definition of achievement gap. The administrator being asked the question said, no, and a general hum went through the school board—one said “well, there you are,” another shrugged. The vibe may have been unintentional, but it struck members of the education group that this was an unpleasant exchange, when the Board could have demonstrated a commitment to doing something but instead seemed like an expression of their being off the hook. The format of the meeting was not such that members could say, “baloney” and point to clear state declarations of the term. See the web page, http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/defagdc.htm

We ought to look at public schools in Tacoma and say, we are better than what we are doing right now. We want to see it totally transformed. [And we should be willing to televise the revolution….] We will take this vision of thorough change seriously. We will take it forward, advance good candidates for Board elections, raise questions in public forums and keep asking them. When we find people who are raising good questions, who are floating ideas that take us in the right direction, we will encourage them to keep doing it, to lead. We will prepare ourselves for the positions of leadership that will make these changes in education. We will be the ones who bring the experience of other towns and school districts, and show them to people and officials in Tacoma. If Tacoma is going to be the world class city we want to live in, then we are going to have to make it so. We are the people we have been waiting for.

At the end of the meeting, some reminders and announcements.
**don’t forget the deduct box, make a contribution for the group expenses.
**we gave appreciation to the group members who put together last night’s salon and fundraiser for the upcoming MLK day event, reclaiming the vision.

Conversation Recap for November 25, 2007

2007-11-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

Josephine was ill and absent today.

3 new people came today as well as 1 guest.

As Josephine had been on the schedule to speak, we took suggestions for topics of discussion:

• School Yard to Prison Yard
• Tukwila Teachers (Counter-Recruitment)
• Divisiveness through Labels
• School Board Study Session Ideas
• Non-WASL Essentials
• Police Civil Rights Violations, Including Shootings
• Graffiti-“Tagging” as Felony

Tom read an article called School Yard to Prison Yard by Marian Wright Edelman reprinted in Seattle Medium (find it also here).

Also brought up was Jesse Jackson’s show on which the topic Feinstein’s plan that could put children as young as 13 in prison for life if gang affiliated, etc.

Institutional racism is the problem. It hurts not only people of color but white children also since this is their education as well. And the people perpetuating it don’t even know, sometimes, that they are perpetuating it.

One member reported overhearing this while in a bathroom stall, “Over at Wainwright, we had a social experiment, a mini society of sorts, 1st grade on. Gov’t, entertainment, police. Those kids on the hill were underhanded, devious etc. then there was a police brutality complaint because some black and white kids were fighting in the bathroom.”

If there’s a pipeline running from schools to jails, how do we turn off the pipeline valve?

One member talked about the Black Education Roundtable (for some history on this group, see here) as well as the School Board mtgs. She believes the answer is more public involvement. A testament is how the School Board has at least been making a shift in how they include public opinion. She brought up Black Legislative Day. We can’t beg and plead—we have to agitate.

Another member talked about framing the talk not in terms of inside/outside, but in terms of how the system works—interest groups get their issues on the table using a focused strategy and aiming at the pressure points and getting their needs met.

We need agitators as well as allies. Change will happen if you organize for it. School reform hasn’t happened even though efforts have been made for decades because we work inside the system, essentially “moving the deck chairs of the sinking ship.”

One member noted that there are a lot of teachers in our group. What can we do? He gave the example of Che Guevara-before you can be a revolutionary Dr. you need a revolution. It relates to our discussion of schools because, while we can do a lot of these reform efforts but until parents have jobs, we’re just putting band-aids on the system.

Another member talked about Cesar Chavez and how much was done by people who had no money. Also, Mothers Against Police Harassment in Seattle.

Systemic change is needed

Clover Park Schools has a psych profile and if you don’t pass, you don’t even get an interview. Some feel that they may have been aced out through answer to the question about developing a personal relationship with students and their families.

A new member said that we need to create effective dialogue. Share what’s in our hearts and minds. In doing that we find those who share our ideals and dispel the fear that we are alone.

One member talked about the problem of staying in the box of a value system that says get a good job so you can make money so you can buy a big house so you can go to Best Buy and get a big screen tv set.

Another talked about encouraging parents to help children and also getting tutors and assistants in the schools to help the parents help the children.

We need to know what our mission is with respect to this “spiritual fight.” Do our homework and teach the children to think for self.

One member, African American, who works at Clover Park High School with the Hero Program (see here) was in the office and was questioned about being a student and then when found out he was staff, questioned him about whether he had been through a background check, requiring him to fill out a form on the spot.

Another member talked about the racial disparities evident in the ways in which school children who don’t “fit” are treated with the question “why is it that white children have ADHD and Black children are disruptive and badly behaved?”

One member talked about how revolution does not occur just because things are in a bad way. People can live under the thumb for years and until hope is infused, nothing will happen. This connects with the comment earlier about effective dialogue—because “talk is action”-- by talking with each other we are infusing hope into the desperate situation.
(you had to be there)-- How do we affect legislation? An example of something that needs to be tackled is the cutting of Headstart Funds. The question was put whether Tom H. would be willing to educate us about affecting the legislative system.

Another member brought up the Backbone Campaign (see here) example. Maybe the Public Education Oversight Committee could make a report card on the Tacoma School system.

One member (from another country) brought up that she couldn’t believe some of the things she was hearing that are allowed in the US school system. In her country, the military and the church are not allowed into the schools. Another thing that caught her attention was that in California where soldiers go into schools and you see little kids with military uniforms and guns. It’s a way to create a consciousness within children to be ready to go to war. What’s most surprising is that it seems to happen most in schools that are very poor. So why aren’t there programs to stop this kind of discrimination of militarization of poor schools? She also has heard that there is a program in some Texas school(s) that allows students to bring their guns to school.

A member talked about agreeing with the language of hope and dialogue as well as the problematic use of inside/outside language. Also asking questions that cause people to think of an alternative way of living. “We” have little problem talking in terms of dropouts and students finding their own back door, but when our district referred to as a drop out factory (which shifts the burden) “we” want to expend all this energy on getting rid of the label rather than getting rid of the problem.

Another member brought up that individual decisions are circumscribed by the system not set up for everyone to succeed.

One member brought up the list of talking points from students in Tukwila who walked out of school in protest of the Iraq war. Some teachers are in danger of being fired. Ethelda Burke is the new superintendent of Tukwila schools. He thinks it would be good if folks in this group could use their influence to help de-escalate the situation because there is going to be a push-back.

Another said that while it’s a good and necessary conversation, it needs to be more intentional and lengthy than we have time for today, but what he said was that it’s tricky for administrators when folks come at an issue from strong positionality

Another member made the point again that we need to transmit information and values to our youth. He paraphrased an author in saying that a person’s mental health is predicated on that individual’s cultural self-love.

Announcements:

Sat. Dec. 1 is the Salon fundraiser fro the MLK event-flyers were passed out
Town Hall Meeting with Adam Smith at UWT Carwein Auditorium Sat. Dec. 1 10-11:30am

The Harvard Group has made a commitment to be a catalyst for change in Tacoma Schools. The mtg. schedule===

Tacoma Schools Central Admn. Bldg. on S. 8th and “I St. 8th Fl. Conf. room
Fri. Nov. 30 3-5pm
Thurs. Dec. 6 4-6pm
Fri. Dec. 14 3-5pm

Interim Superintendent Art Jarvis
Asst. Sup. Michael Power
Asst. Flip Herndon
Prin. Dan Dizon McIlveigh
Prin. Graig Eisnagle Mt. Tacoma
Prin. Pat Irwin Lincoln
School Improvement Director, Karen Clark
Facilitator Kelly Hofstra
Dorothy Anderson
Tom Hilyard

Dec. 1st for about a month Tacoma Art Museum will begin featuring AIDS quilts from NW

Conversation Recap for November 18, 2007

2007-11-25T15:37:00.000-08:00

We had a Thanksgiving Potluck at the home of one of our group and talked about the history of Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving traditions/memories and what we are thankful for.

Recap for November 11, 2007

2007-11-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

During introductions we welcomed two new members.

Today we heard David’s story. He mentioned a book his father showed him, “Melanin: The Chemical Key To Black Greatness” by Carol Barnes. Some of the discussion that ensued explored sources of African American identity, and Members expressed anticipation of the next installment of his story. One theme questions and discussion kept circling back to was the sacred trust between the adults and the children—we heard examples of how to keep that trust.

We heard a brief report from the education group. Sunday, December 2, Tom is leading the discussion, and we are likely to include the activities of the Conversation’s education group. One Member noted that part of the education group’s work involves pointing out the workings of Whiteness—the way the school board selected the previous superintendent, the way they selected a replacement, without examining how the advantaged group regards its position as the social norm, and how this affects their policymaking. If you want to see more about the education policy group, about the recent Johns Hopkins report referred to in today’s meeting, or the outcomes of the group that went to the Harvard workshop on the achievement gap, please go to http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/tacoma_schools_policy.htm.

We began our discussion of the documents put together by Susan and Dexter, about our values and mission. We assembled into groups of five to discuss the drafts. There were many, many comments about the draft. Each group is forwarding their notes, and they will be incorporated into new drafts, to be posted here soon.

Recap for November 4, 2007

2007-11-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

Good morning, everyone. We went around with introductions, and welcomed two first-time people.

Next week we will consider a document about our vision and mission [attached below].

This morning we heard Steve’s story. Much of the ensuing conversations focused on the ways people get involved with movements.

We welcomed Bernie Kleina, exec dir of the Hope Fair Housing Center, in Wheaton, Ill. [See their web page here ]. An introduction to some of his photographs on display can be read here. [You can read more about Bernie here.]. He shared with us a video about a law professor, tenured faculty at the University of Richmond, an African American woman, who was recently denied rental housing based on color. Her story described the consequences of the personal insult of housing discrimination. “It is not just something that happens, and you get used to it after a while. Who should get used to being degraded? Who should have to get used to that?”

Bernie got involved in civil rights after watching marchers beaten in Alabama, and realized he could not just do nothing. His first visit to Alabama (in which he was arrested for parading without a license, in a party of five—that and black people walking together constituted a parade in those days) helped him realize that discrimination is not a Southern issue—it is for all of us.

He now has a display of photographs traveling the country that describes the situation in Chicago, which is as segregated as ever. [The exhibit is entitled [The Chicago Freedom Movement — Remember Why You're Here, Brother.] Part of the story is about how basic discrimination is still rife—he told a story of lunch counter discrimination. His group has sent out groups of testers, to see if various merchants and public facilities treat people the same regardless of color. One of the things the testers show us is that apparently good treatment at stores is revealed as something else—such as an African American who felt like he was being treated well at a jeweler, but the comparison pointed out that whites were shown several watches at a time, instead of one. Or how polite treatment by potential landlords masks outcomes starkly marked by color.

He quoted another M. L. King Jr. speech, “When the guns of war become a national obsession” that something happens to conscience—it becomes mutilated and deaf to justice. [See King’s most famous speech on Vietnam here, and another of his speeches on the war here].

The task now: Enforce the law. Keep sending out the message that all of us are protected by fair housing laws. And we need to keep working at the obvious inequities, such as in education, that produce very different starting places for people.

We were introduced to a four-page document describing our values, mission and activities. Well, we were going to go into it (at 5 minutes to 12 we had not yet presented it). But Dexter introduced the discussion with an additional topic that emerged out of the last few weeks’ discussion of our values/mission document: What is Whiteness? This was the topic of a lecture he presented at UPS, and at a recent conference. Whiteness is a “discursive formation,” an idea that is widespread—in knowledge, the ways people think we should act, actual practices of the way we live. Historically, whiteness has been framed as an essential part of being American. He shared some quotes from Hector St. John, do Crevecoeur, the third of his Letters from an American Farmer, 1782. American identity is a mixture of white national origins from northern Europe. The melting pot metaphor meant melting Swedes and Germans and English. At the time Crevecoeur was writing, the population of the United States was about 16 or 17% African origins (the slave trade went on for another quarter century). Part of whiteness is to render nonwhites as invisible. We discussed some of the implications of who the Census historically decided to count—some people are missing from those old figures, for reasons (such as trying to exterminate a people). A similar issue arises with regards to crime statistics—the reported figures are a product of a place where whiteness is the norm—so white on white crimes are underreported.

The first black newsletters in the United States, in about 1827, proclaimed that for too long others have spoken for black folks, and that the description of racism need to come from the voices of those not yet heard. More recently, one of the points made by black scholars was that Europeans would be surprised to hear how many people are not part of the white European peoples, and not Christian, either.

One target of the concept of whiteness is to “de-center” it—being white is offered as the default category, as being Normal. And as heard from Bernie this morning, and as several Conversation members have said before, pretty much all white people have to learn they are white. It is not apparent in the general culture, and it is an idea that is warred upon in most social circles. [A discussion of whiteness is appended to the end of these minutes.]

Winthrop Jordan, in his book White over Black (Norton, available as a paperback book—he also wrote The White Man's Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States.), has traced the origins of whiteness as a concept back to the early 16th century. Whiteness was framed as laudable and glorious, and blackness was framed as base and corrupt. As successive groups came to the USA, they worked to become acceptable—to become white (Irish, Jews, Italians, etc., were not regarded as white). There was one group that could not adjust.
Members of the Conversation brought up several points about the concept of whiteness and its uses, and interpretations. One example that came up—why are crime statistics reported by race? Why not do it by religion (how many crimes committed by Presbyterians?)? Another example—of white America learning to see blackness as a threat, as in the case of a Michigan university that was 70% white but whose white students believed it was 70% black. We also mentioned a couple of times how science, social science, and media are brought into the service of justifying whiteness. Media treatment of whiteness is instrumental in transmitting the ideas—the genre of the Western, for example. We discussed, for a while, the historical construction of whiteness back in the 16th through 19th centuries, such as in the treatment of the native peoples here, the use of biblical interpretation to provide a justification of whiteness as normal. Several people gave examples of treatments of native peoples, such as stories presented in the book 500 nations.

One teacher described how, in her classroom, she had students draw a timeline of the peoples here in North America, over the last 30,000 or so years, which highlights how recently were whites here, how many of the changes that constructed the present situation occurred a very short time ago, as a way of getting at the way we have constructed the present as normal.

One person introduced the idea of what the world would be like, if there were only 100 people in it, but in the same mix as at present. A graphical presentation of that is here, and a text presentation is here.

Another person reported that she hears, over and over again, that here in Pierce County there are no real problems of racism. “Why do you always go on about it?” She described whiteness as similar to a cancer, affecting the whole society and easting away at us at so many levels.

One person attended a Diabetic Association conference yesterday at Stadium High School, and one of the presentations highlighted how the diversity of Pierce County is increasing—and so is the spread of diabetes. This was linked to the gentrification of the Hilltop area—mostly a white phenomenon—and how this distracts attention from the ways poverty is linked to diabetes, and affects so many nonwhite peoples disproportionately.

Does multiplication of diversity, do differences, have us press toward the middle—the middle being white, protestant, and so on? Criticisms of African-Americans for keeping the hyphen are signs of whiteness in action: why can’t you people be like the middle? When we press towards common cultural standards, which ones are we going to use? The standard is whiteness. One example ended with a question--You smell any culture you walk into—the food, the spices, are different—but, what does one say about the difference?

________________________________________________

A discussion of whiteness, by a member of the Conversation.

What does it mean to use the concept of white privilege, or whiteness? At one level, it means the set of advantages that accrue to whites simply by virtue of their color (historical ones, such as labor laws that excluded predominantly black occupations, programs to promote home ownership or college attendance that accrued predominantly to whites, or present ones, such as the way people are treated at automobile dealerships). The advantaged group regards its position as the social norm, so that the holders of privileges do not recognize them as such.

This entails a power to name and define issues, such as the way the affirmative action debate is framed. For example, in the recent case of the University of Michigan’s affirmative action policies, the President and the media almost exclusively focused on the University’s bias in awarding black applicants twenty points (out of one hundred and fifty) based on race. There were other point bonuses that were seldom mentioned. Applicants from Michigan’s upper peninsula area, which is almost exclusively white, received sixteen points. Poor applicants receive twenty points—but the twenty points were not added if the applicant already received the points based on race. Ten points were given to students from top ranked high schools, and another ten for students who took several Advanced Placement courses, and four points if one’s parents attended the University—categories overwhelmingly of white applicants. Whites who scored on all of these categories would receive fifty-eight points, but little was said about this in the public debate. Whiteness is the default category, and goes largely unexamined.
Non-whiteness is defined as the Other, and is suspect if any privilege accrues to it.

Can we admit white privilege exists? The concept is a staple of critical race theory, critical legal studies, and similar academic fields, but it has not penetrated mainstream social science or popular political dialog. One very valuable insight from these fields is apparent from their methodology. Critical race theory, in particular, employs a lot of narrative. This tends to focus on the experience of people who have experienced discrimination. Most accounts of justice in mainstream political theory, by contrast, treat such perspectives in a formal fashion, if at all. So part of systematic ignorance is the methodologies that encourage abstraction as if that covered relevant perspectives, when it clearly does not.

How do we see privilege? What period do we examine? Why not start when I was born? Why not start when my mother was born? Do we want to include a period that will tally the benefits accrued from the 1862 Homestead Act? My family benefited from it, black families did not. Do we want to include a period that will include the benefits accrued from grants of land in the mid-17th century? My family benefited from some of those. Or, what about benefits from the relatively open immigration policies of the mid-19th century? How do these make a difference? My mother’s family was able to take money from these sources out of Massachusetts, and use it to build wealth in cattle and banking in Kansas. They lost most of it in the Depression, but the kids, including my grandfather, went to prep schools and to college. They also had a restaurant and a big house that provided their income and a home during the Depression, and they were in a fairly good position when the economy got better. They could send their surviving child, my mother, to a private college. There she met my dad, whose family had similar wealth that they did not lose during the Depression (although his grandmother gave it all away to the Methodist church). After WWII my dad went to college and got a Stanford MBA, courtesy of the GI Bill. I grew up in a nice home on a ranch my parents bought with a GI Bill loan at less than 6% interest. So there was no question about whether I would go to college, and the professional world was open to me. All I had to do was study and avoid jail. I went through college when public support for education was at its all-time high. A half-time minimum wage job would pay for college and the cheapest apartment in Seattle’s university district. Graduate school was financed completely on scholarships. When I finished school I had no debts. My kids all had the expectation of going to college, and could afford it without too much in loans. These benefits accrued to living persons, people I knew. This is a story not untypical for white families, but very rare for black families.

The important thing to notice here is the role of government policies. New Deal policies of the 1930s that helped workers (such as rights to form unions, minimum wage, and relief to the unemployed) required the support of Southern Democrats, who were able to exclude agricultural and domestic workers from coverage under the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Local administration of relief programs allowed exclusion where racial segregation was the norm. In the South, white privilege grew stronger because of the New Deal. These programs helped make covered workers much better off—while excluded workers were left behind.

The GI Bill opened educational opportunities after WWII, but these went overwhelmingly to whites, in large part because the armed services, colleges and universities practiced segregation. GI Bill home and small business loans, which expanded home and business ownership, operated through lending institutions that discriminated and redlined. The effects of this were bigger than individual decisions about where to live, although those choices were probably influential in Northern Democrat lawmakers’ role in policies.

The major results of these policies are seen in wealth. Average income of black households is about 2/3 that of white household; but average wealth of black households is about 1/10 that of white households. Over 70% of white households own their home, about 25% of black households own their homes, worth about 60% as much as those of white households.

During the lifetime of people I have known, these and similar programs helped white families get ahead in life. The advantages were not available to black families.

(The following are footnotes for the above article, but this blog does not allow for their formatting. I've included them here, though they are not properly identified with the sections which they reference.)

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1. One of the most extensive discussions of white privilege is Stephanie M. Wildman, et.al., Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America (NY: New York University Press, 1996), with a definition at p.13. A concise description of white privilege is found in Barbara J. Flagg, “Whiteness as Metaprivilege,” 18 Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 1(2005) pp. 1-12. James Baldwin used the concept in several ways. See his ”On Being White…and Other Lies,” Essence April, 1984, and The Fire Next Time (NY: The Dial Press, 1963), where he argues, for example, that whites expend a lot of energy in order to not be judged by blacks. See also Wells, Revilla and Holme, Op.Cit.; Wildman, 2005.
2. GRATZ V. BOLLINGER (02-516) 539 U.S. 244 (2003).
3.The examples are from Tim Wise, Whites Swim in Racial Preference, Posted on http://www.alternet.org/story/15223/, February 20, 2003.
4. On the failure of the concept to penetrate mainstream political dialog, see Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres, The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy 5. This point is made by Devon W. Carbado and Mitu Gulati, BOOK REVIEW: The Law and Economics of Critical Race Theory: Crossroads, Directions, and a New Critical Race Theory. 112 Yale L.J. (May, 2003) 1757.
6. See, for example, Ian Shapiro, Democratic Justice (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). The book is an excellent demonstration of the strength of a democratic understanding of justice, and is at the same time systematic and tied to concrete examples in our politics. Yet it pays virtually no attention to the justice issues connected to the color line. I use it as an example here because it is among the very best recent books in political theory.
7. These examples are suggested in George M. Fredrickson, “Still Separate & Unequal,” a review of Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (NY: Norton, 2005), The New York Review of Books, Volume 52, (November 17, 2005) Number 18.

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DRAFT

The Conversation Tacoma

Values and Mission

The Conversation is a group of South Sound residents committed to building just communities. We promote social justice through talk and action. We strive to be one of the just, open, compassionate communities we are working to establish in Tacoma and beyond. The Conversation is a family, an affinity group, a think tank, and a safe house. We work to envision and procure a better world.

Two questions guide our work together: The first is philosophical: what is the meaning of our lives – our relationship to each other, the world, the universe? The second is practical and pragmatic: What are our immediate socio-political responsibilities and how do we fulfill them in a world burdened by bigotry, mistrust, and suffering?

Goals and Process

At the Conversation’s weekly gatherings, we engage with issues, values, tasks, and one another. In order to sustain genuine engagement over the long term, Conversation participants engage in four processes:

We talk purposefully and listen respectfully: share life stories; generate ideas and strategies; learn across difference; seek guidance and renewal from activists, artists, teachers, scholars, wisdom texts, and faith traditions; study root causes of social injustice; learn about peace and justice initiatives.

We take action: create social justice programs for the community; join local struggles for equity and peace; produce venues for artistic expression; support one another’s programs and performances, as participants and as audience.

We provide sustenance: establish a safe place to explore issues misrepresented or shrouded in silence elsewhere; find our voices; nurture social activists; renew our courage; strengthen bonds of friendship and trust.

We seek transformation: recognize and challenge our biases; acknowledge our limits and then go beyond them; align our actions and words with our deepest commitments; develop our resilience, power, and capacity for change; celebrate our achievements.

Talk and Action

Our talk and our action emerge from the interests and expertise of those who attend weekly Conversation meetings. There we engage critically with such issues as the legal system, wages, housing, food, healthcare and education. We also take action through programming and advocacy work in three areas: 1) Education; 2) The Arts; 3) Peace and Social Justice. Like the Conversation itself, all of our activities are open to South Sound residents of every race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, religion, and sexual orientation.

Since it’s inception in January 2006, the Conversation has envisioned, initiated, and brought to fruition:

1) Education
Conversation members have created Tacoma Conversation Education, an interest group meeting bi-weekly to scrutinize Tacoma public education policies, advocate for policy and curricular change, and address the achievement gap through on-going interactions and debate with the Tacoma School Board and local officials. This group will continue to seek equity in education for all Tacoma children through grass-roots involvement in policy change.

2) The Arts
Conversation members produced SoJust 2007, a one day program to promote justice through art, music, and dance, to conduct a food and coat drive for Tacoma children in need, and to share information with the local community on how to make change. This program will be continued as an annual local event.

3) Peace and Social Justice
Conversation members produced “Redeeming the Vision,” an annual program to celebrate Martin Luther King’s prophetic vision and to educate the community regarding the full depth and significance of his liberatory message. This celebration will be continued as an annual Tacoma event.

The Conversation also actively supports local initiatives that coincide with our vision and have been created or actively supported by Conversation members:

1) Education
The on-going initiative on education and the color line emerging from the 2006 Race and Pedagogy Conference and the 2007 Race and Pedagogy Summit

2) The Arts
Attend and promote The New Orleans Monologues

3) Peace and social justice
Participate in and attend United for Peace of Pierce County debates on the Iraq war

Envisioning a Future

To envision a future, we address philosophical and practical dimensions of our work. To respond to the philosophical question -- what is the meaning of our lives, our relationship to each other, the world, the universe? -- we need to develop further in these directions:

Deepen our knowledge of African American history, the history of marginalized groups, and the processes of marginalization

Learn more from one another and from our various cultural perspectives

Deepen our encounters with faith traditions and wisdom texts so that they inform our work and our relationships

Practice forms of challenging one another that allow us to address the hard questions while keeping our bonds of friendship and trust intact

Give each person opportunities to lead, to develop cultural competence, to become more ideologically flexible, more resilient, better prepared for hostilities we encounter elsewhere, better able to work with fear and overcome voicelessness

To address the practical question -- What are our immediate socio-political responsibilities and how do we fulfill them?– we need to sustain our current commitments but also expand beyond them by acting creatively in these areas:

Develop more programming for children and youth at the Conversation and in the community—such as monthly classes (on hip-hop; on artist as change agent, etc.)

Develop more programming for children at the Conversation and in the community, such as visual or written arts programming

Increase our presence in the community, at elections, in schools, at School board meetings, at city council, at anti-war rallies

Serve as a community resource on racial justice: provide programming that engages people in the journey to justice through anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anticlassist practices

Become more intergenerational, more diverse, more supportive

Develop multiple levels of leadership

Grow our volunteer base

Connect with our community through joint programming

Help families and neighborhoods become centers of social justice
Enacting Our Vision

At the Conversation, talk is action because it provides us with momentum and direction for wise action. Action is talk because our actions communicate our values and commitments, our vision for a better world. When we enact our vision, we serve others, and we develop our own resources, physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual.

Our action focus for 2008:

Plan carefully for service and social action

Organize SoJust 2008

Organize Redeeming the Vision 2009

Extend the influence of Tacoma Education Conversation on public education policy

Sponsor a 2008 youth summit

Identify and develop new leaders for the Conversation and the South Sound

Establish a weekly or monthly Conversation youth group that meets in the afternoon

Create a partnership with Lincoln High School or with a classroom there, working with students, teachers, families

Develop a ten-year plan for the Conversation

Increase the Conversation’s education about racism

Prepare a capital campaign

Grow average attendance to 50 by October 2008

Read a text together that speaks to our work and sustains our direction perhaps inviting the community at large to join us

Our Long term focus:

Establish a fully developed program of activities to serve our entire community

Increase regular attendance from 25-30 to 70-75

Increase our multi-cultural diversity

Adapt our schedule to balance whole group meetings with smaller action group meetings

History

Program

Leadership

Membership

Financing

Recap for October 28, 2007

2007-10-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

In announcements the education group described recent developments—the question of whether the School Board will go forward with a Superintendent Search is still in the air; links are developing with other Tacoma; and Members are invited to stay tuned into the education group and come to meetings—all are welcome. A reminder: the Education group keeps track of many of its efforts at a website, HERE

This morning we heard BJ’s story. Members mentioned their appreciation of her story telling talents.

We discussed components of identity—groups label individuals in ways that places them as Other, as above and below. Members appreciate examples of drawing strength from the experience. This is no small feat. The entire western philosophical tradition can be seen as a search for autonomy—but some people subjected to the ridicule of their communities figure it out. One example—valuing connections with other women, while at the same time wanting all of them to be independent. And, Conversation members were rapt at an example of a young kid coming up with real wisdom during a difficult exchange.

We are reminded that none of us are perfect—it is good when we do the best we can, and when we can’t do something, we link up with someone who can. As kids we often get told things that are understood to mean we are somehow short of a standard implied in the statement. This is part of life, and we grownups should be aware of how we talk to kids.

Someone asked about Baha’i during our discussions. The Wikipedia entry informs us that it was founded “by Bahá'u'lláh in 19th-century Persia,” and that “(a)ccording to Bahá'í teachings, religious history has unfolded through a series of God's messengers who brought teachings suited for the capacity of the people at their time, and whose fundamental purpose is the same. Bahá'u'lláh is regarded as the most recent, but not final, in a line of messengers.” See more HERE.

One member appreciated the broad coverage of today’s discussion. We can get at racism, we also want to talk about homophobia, sexism, and other forms of objectification—speaking up against dehumanization is valuable.

A nationally organized antiwar rally occurred yesterday, in Seattle (from Judson park on 1st hill down to Occidental park, just South of downtown). Some Conversation members attended. A few thousand people showed up, and one feature was putting the war on trial. And, the mass media did virtually no coverage.

One member expressed disappointment that more young people are not involved in antiwar efforts. One connection here is that military recruiting is focused more on the urban inner city poor—anyone see the Army commercial about going into the military as how to be the man in the house?

Another member expressed concern that for many young folks, they are in such difficult situations that going to war appears as a reasonable alternative. Several made comments on this on related concerns, and what emerged was a picture of frustration at having too few opportunities to make a difference. And, us being a grassroots group, there were several exchanges on local groups doing things—United for Peace of Pierce County [see their vigil list HERE], Women In Black [the Tacoma group meets 2nd & 4th Wednesdays each month, 5:15-6:15 PM. in front of the federal courthouse (the old Union train station); the Gig Harbor group meets Every Friday, 5:00-6:00 PM, at the corner of Olympic and Fosdick (Safeway corner)] and others are there, people. You can give it an hour a week, if this matters.

One theme we kept coming back to has to do with why we keep coming to The Conversation. We don’t want to lay down and feel like no one can do anything. Pretty much everyone here is involved in something, and wants to keep involved, doing something. More than one shared stories of how years ago their main orientation was anger, and an impulse to destruction reaction to the things we talk about. This is a room full of hopeful people, and a hope that motivates us to action. And one thing we get from coming here is support for action.

One member said: “I know justice is hard work. It does not come just because you want it. Doing the hard work it is sometimes hard to see the change…. It is important to remind ourselves when that happens…. And it is not large numbers that make right, right… I can make this change, and I have the power to influence others to do right and be right. And you really must take courage from the successes that occur….”

One member said: “All of us are going to encounter fear. You must not let it overtake you.”

New Orleans Monologues is in two weeks (the 9th), at the University of Puget Sound. For the matinee at 2 on Saturday the 10th, about 35 kids need rides from Lincoln high schools to the play. Some kind of ride sharing, church buses, university vans, something can be done…..

Recap for October 21, 2007

2007-10-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

A bit rainy, and barely fifty, we assembled at Evergreen in Tacoma.

This morning we heard Bernadette’s story.

Several strands of conversation looked at the construction of self in a land divided by color. One member said, “I wish kids didn’t have to explain themselves” for why they bring to schools their own sets of skills,” it would be good if they were each treated equally.

One focus of these discussions was about the toxicity of the color line in schools—for lots of kids, they are the only person of color in a room. It is vitally important that schools have enough teachers of color, for example. There are several dimensions to this toxicity—young kids who are constructing an identity in the midst of this, for example. We might construct little zones of comfort, but several Members believe the education system here is fundamentally flawed. Doing one program—such as supporting one classroom in one school, for example (see below)—does not distract Conversation members from continuing to work on the systemic problems—the biggest of which might be that we have a system that produces the loss of about three in ten of our kids.

One piece of an answer is to encourage kids to be teachers, to tell them it is the best job in the world. That might not be true every day, but looking at a larger picture, more teachers of color are needed, and have to be encouraged and nurtured.

A related issue came up. How do people in school administration and teachers see, understand the lower test scores among students of color? The members in the room bring a lot of experience in schools. Perceptions differ, to put it delicately. Answers often focus on poverty. There are remediation classes (a claim: research shows remediation does not improve test scores, but mandated remediation programs are the way we deal with it—and, students placed in them are taken out of classes such as music and art.), there are after school programs. But there is a strong consensus among teachers that the basics of classroom organization need to be remade. We know that school should begin at 9, given the physical being of those we call students, but it starts at 7:30 because the buses require it.

One important piece of parent involvement—at some schools, a good proportion of parents do not speak English, and perhaps don’t read much. Schools tend to be unwelcoming places for parents—finding the office, waiting, getting the passes, and so on. There are barriers.

One recurring strand of conversation was to compare the experience of students and teachers from a privileged background. Most privileged folks, as we have gone over many times in the Conversation, do not see it. One story illustrated how teachers can inadvertently accentuate the privilege: the teacher in a theater class asked the students to each announce what their parents did.

Teachers confronting the toxicity face burnout, and operate under these conditions for years. One method of coping is to find other kinds of activities to plug into the week.

How do you get kids to figure out what is valuable to them? This is a perennial struggle. There are lots of vehicles for getting kids to this. Some love sports, and stay in school so they can keep it up. Some are charged by art and theater, and put up with the rest of the classes as a way to be there.

The meta-conversation continues from last week.

We have heard a message from our teachers (which is the line of work most represented among those present), and the examples keep reiterating the same issues.

Perhaps it is time for The Conversation to adopt a classroom, or a school. The education people in the room are encouraged to come up with a design for how that might work. Might we be the ones that would organize things for the parents (some kind of orientation, for example). There are other ideas…. How about the educators here coming up with a plan, within a couple of weeks, that we can talk about? Perhaps the Conversation can sponsor however many students might come from Lincoln.

One Conversation member emphasized an important feature of education—getting parents involved. As volunteers, we can find out what parents need, and have a way to intervene in schools to make them more welcoming places for what parents need.

Another Member emphasized getting the kids involved at the leadership level—such as raising their voices before the school board.

A group of high school students were able to read The Students Are Watching, by Theodore Sizer. A blurb on the book says “Sizers point out that the students are often seen as the school's "clients," as its powerless peopleAthough the authors believe that is a costly, patronizing pretense. Instead, the Sizers call for adults to put stock in the suggestions of children, since they watch and listen to adults all the time and have learned more than we realize.”

A suggestion, immediately endorsed: One way to think about the way we refer to the relationship with a school or classroom—instead of calling it adoption, let’s call it a partnership.

When inviting parents—have food available, arrange carpools, let folks know they can dress however they want, have their kids in the plays…. there are lots of things to do to get students to come.

We talked about the Tacoma schools group. See the web page, at http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/tacoma_schools_policy.htm. Note the addition of a linked page, at http://www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/hgse.htm, which is about the Nov. 1-3 workshop at Harvard, to be visited by a contingent from Tacoma Schools, including a member of The Conversation. Members are asked to familiarize themselves with the material as a way of supporting these inquiries into

We discussed the lists we constructed last week, and talked about where to go with it from there.

One Group’s Ideas:
• We can assemble a list of books, a list of films, which support the study of our systems of value (such as Edwin Nichol’s work on axiology) that will constitute a foundation for Conversation topics. This can help reduce the invisible barriers of understanding.
• We can support a classroom or a school. There are different dimensions of this—supporting the teacher, finding ways to support the families. A couple of people asked about the PTA’s, or PTSA’s, whether they are active and viable. One Member recalled that in high school they had a way to identify for each student a Next Step after graduation—which implies early intervention, a group of parents taking care, talking to students and parents, getting conversations going about options, and the PTA was probably involved in this. One topic we discussed at some length: the burdens on low income families should never be underestimated—time demands, barriers mentioned earlier in today’s discussions, for examples—and it means the schools and support organizations need to find ways to welcome and encourage participation of parents.
• Schools should have tutors and teaching assistants in the classrooms of our schools. Many of us in this room have the skills to do that. Some of us remember going to school with teaching assistants in the classroom. We can advocate for this in our schools.
• These conversations led to a deeper consideration of systems of values, of learning tutoring skills.

Another Group’s report:
• We should continue as we are—in the process of getting there, we are on the right Track in the Conversation, esp. in the group dynamics of how we reach those goals (such as influencing the system, closing the achievement gap).
• Inviting people to supporting events, such as the discussions today about getting students to the New Orleans Monologues, November 9.
• The music events, such as So Just, and encouraging members of the Conversation to get out and do the things that use their talents—some can preach, some play music, and all of us can ‘walk the walk’ of Conversation topics in the situations we find ourselves in. We should note that a Conversation member reported hearing from a couple of people who no longer come to our gathering because they did not feel welcome here—because of gender identity issues. We were encouraged to consider this, and consider that we have some unfinished business here. Another member said that she feels welcomed here.

Another Group’s report:
• We need to be doing more street action. We can come up with a list of volunteer and service opportunities for Conversation members.
• A Conversation t-shirt is one way to let others know about us, noting that perhaps we should discuss the wisdom of growing in size.
• We should consider getting involved with schools earlier than high schools.

Another Group’s report: (to be emailed and included later)

Another Group’s report:
• We want to orient new people, have our history and vision, etc., put into a handy document, maybe a trifold, that we can keep ready for handouts. We should have a plan of introduction, to have a self-conscious welcome for new people. Part of it was the inclusion of a list of readings and other texts.
• Offer the Tacoma community at large an opportunity to read a book, perhaps something by M.L. King Jr. Someone mentioned Where Do We Go From Here. (A speech of that topic was given by Dr. King on August 16, 1967, and you can read it at http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/speeches/Where_do_we_go_from_here.html.)

Discussion of the group lists: There are some common charges in the lists, and some implications for how we get involved in activities that arise out of Conversation discussions. People find us in different ways, with different expectations, identities, resources, and commitments. The common expectation here is that people come to the Conversation, listen earnestly, and over time come to identify the places where they wish to make a difference.

There was some discussion of the report of a couple of people not coming because they felt unwelcome. We are sort of on the side that wants to include everybody, and if some don’t show up because they don’t like being near certain people, well, that is a cost of trying to be inclusive.

Some Announcements:

A Member distributed an advisory ballot for the upcoming election. Call any regularly attending member for its suggestions.

Peace Community Center, Nov. 8, 6:30 am, is having a breakfast and you are encouraged to contact colleen.

Friday Nov. 2, 9-3:30. 923 S. 8th st, Catherine’s Place, a workshop on “Bullies, Manipulators, and other relationship.

Saturday, Oct. 27, noon at 23rd and Jackson in Seattle, there is a peace march. Tacomans can meet at the Tacoma Dome bus station at 9:30, and a caravan from there at 10 am.

This Friday, 7 pm, David Price is going to be at King’s Books talking about the topic of his recent book: how anthropologists and other experts are being used in war efforts.

Sun. Nov. 11, 1-4, a Sunday Salon fund raiser for United For Peace of Pierce County. See Kristi Nebel.

2007-10-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

We should develop the three key areas already in existence. Decide on what we wish to do about funding? Look for ways to collaborate with other organizations and interest groups in our community. Decide on whether we wish to grow our numbers?

Recap for October 14, 2007

2007-10-14T17:59:00.001-07:00

(Note: at the end of today’s notes is a charge for next week’s discussions)

We began a little late today, and welcomed four new first-time members. A standing round of applause for yesterday’s So Just festival. “Everybody held it down, and everything came together.” We gave thanks to our So Just organizing team and participants.

Today we heard Stephen’s story.

One of the topics we discussed was the book, Deep Like the Rivers, by Thomas L. Webber, about education for the enslaved in the American South. You can read a review of it here. (This link is a bit cumbersome as users must have an affiliation with a participating library to access it easily, but the review said Webber argued that “by creating and controlling their own educational instruments the slave quarter community was able to reject most of white teaching and to pass to their children a set of unique cultural themes.”)

We also discussed some dimensions of privilege. Many kids will notice things that seem fair or not fair, and usually the frame of reference for fairness is, fair or unfair for us. Experience in educational justice and social justice issues, actually doing the work of it, enables us to broaden that base for asking about what is fair and unfair. Many of the people at the Conversation share a hope in the power of one person acting.

As noted last week, we are going to talk today about meta-talk, talk about our own processes and goals. Yesterday, at So Just, is an example of some talk that was going on becoming a real thing. Conversation members were encouraged to revel in the moment and appreciate what can happen when we see words transformed into a social event, and to see them transformed into something that was not there before.

Sometimes words take a while to come around to create something. We were reminded of the 1896 Supreme Court decision, Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court gave legal cover to a system of segregation. Justice Harlan said, “I dissent,” and predicted the decision would haunt the nation. And more recently chief justice of the Court, Rehnquist, wrote when he was a law clerk in 1952, "Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." (see this discussed here. Rehnquist’s memo presaged today’s Court, which has effectively moved back to that stage, even more so than when this article was written.)

He shared a document laying out the vision of the Conversation. Part of the document recounted the history of the Conversation. In a grand bit of irony, a church that was an early home to the group, which was reading King’s Why We Can’t Wait, pretty much went through the same processes King described among the church leaders of Montgomery. The church spokespeople were uncomfortable with the discussion of race, and, were squarely on the side of the Conversation. If a group talks about race once, they are easily labeled as “just about race.” And being so-labeled, a group is marginalized. And, several people in the church came to the pastor and said they wanted to get rid of that group. (People who don’t have a copy of Why We Can’t Wait and wish to read a copy of King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” can read it online here.)

Discussions of fairness are easily dismissed because they are construed as discussions of race.

The stories were told to affirm that the Conversation has collected its share of bruises, and that we should look around at it now—the group has endured these and keeps its commitment to keep going, and will as long as it continues to find a good answer to the question—are we relevant? And, many of us ask others to come around with us Sunday mornings—it is worth doing, and worth sharing.

“Come with all you bring, and you flavor what we become.”

One point raised: At the Conversations we call ourselves residents of the area, not just citizens—because the status of citizenship is, historically, constricted for many people, and still is. (Conversations members might be interested in Rogers M. Smith, Civic Ideals.)

At the Conversation, “when you are spouting trivialities and think they are profound, your friends will wake you up.” Supporting each other is a big part of what we do. And sometimes we will have sharp disagreement in our conversations, and bruised egos. But the model we follow has to be a willingness to hang on and continue to engage.

A few things going on here: The education focus group is active. The first annual So Just happened yesterday. Redeeming the Vision will be this coming January 20, 2008, at Urban Grace. We continue to be interested in schools, in individual teachers. We have a number of things developing, such as a possible forum on the relationship between Jewish and Black community groups interested in social justice.
We opened the topic, “Who would you say we are?”
• A group of people that get together to talk about relevant things that are happening, and we are able to talk about all the isms that do not go over well at other groups. One member shared an example of getting censored at another group for doing this.
• A place to gain strategies and courage so that we can bring up justice at other places. We are a think tank, in a way. We generate ideas, and we generate groups that act. We can be seen as evolving toward a strategy and action group, in addition to talking about them.
• This is a support system, a place to explore the things that are uncomfortable, but it is a comfortable place to be uncomfortable.
• There are many in the room have been educators, and have worked with community groups. And the Conversation is a presence more people want to know about.
• Conversation and action are part of a dynamic that feed each other.
• We are a community, people coming together to be a community.
• We are a group of people who have found a safe place to engage in intense dialog about cultural content that we need to address. It is difficult to even talk about the dominant assumptions, and to integrate the conversations into the way we live.

We broke up, every two tables no more than 5 people, with the charge to answer the question: What can we become?

Report from One group
• The question of becoming—hey, wait, it is a dynamic and open thing. It is a good thing to become what we are, this open thing where people can come in, become a part of this, help with the projects and come up with new ones.
• It would be good if we were able to pull together key phrases from different faith traditions that address the themes we address and maybe push us in some direction.
• The Conversation can be a place where people from just about any tradition, and teachers from them, the kids and parents, can come into this group and get sustenance, from burnout to being rekindled. We have a lot to offer in this direction.
• This group started reading a book, and it would be good to do that again. Study something that is going to speak to the work we are doing. This is not a call to do only that, but it is something I value. And we should remember that group that started off by reading a book kept it together, and the community reading of the book built a shared understanding that is very valuable. We could schedule that for a period of time, some designated meetings.
• We reiterated the value of the personal stories, and noted several dimensions of their value.

Another group report:
• talk is action, and we need other action to spread the message about justice
• we like the intimate interaction, and we need to share that with public officials
• a place to find some common ground
• to work with the youth piece of it, be a safe environment where we can develop this and come up with actions
• We don’t want to spread everyone too thin with additional actions.

Another Group
• want to be strong, a place of transformation
• to be able to tell the difference between the truth and the lies
• to change our stories
• close gaps, find community together
• a place to encourage and empower people
• to keep fear from having power over us
• encourage others to attend, educate each other, and be a place where we can take refuge from the loneliness
• a social change agent

Another Group
• We should be a spawning ground for members
• We can be a group that learns across difference, a learning about African American history, learning how different cultures can help us figure out the world
• We want to continue to be a place where we are not afraid to discuss white privilege.
• Churches usually have a common text, and the common text here seems to be the collection of individual stories, and we must continue this. We become footnotes in each others stories, make them all richer.

Another Group
• We don’t do away with the wisdom texts, and incorporate them into what we do.
• We should be more of who we are, a safe space, a think tank, and a role model.
• We can become more present in the community, in elections, at the school board
• We can prepare ourselves more for hostile conversations.
• Be resilient under stress
• A place to find our voice.

Another Group--Intergenerational focus
• be a verb, not a noun.
• Be a community resource for folks interested in racial justice.
• sponsor the 2008 youth summit
• allow development and opportunity for each person to lead
• become more intergenerational, more diverse, explore more formats for encouraging youth participation, maybe one later in the day, try the storytelling there.

Another Group—characteristics of The Conversation
• revolutionary
• think tank
• affinity group—a small group of activists who work together on direct action, are nonhierarchical and work among trusted friends, a community organization that is decentralized, having a shared concern, a flexible ideology
• culturally competent

Responses to what we heard.
• “I am not an agent.” Be careful about identifying people who disagree as ‘agent.’
• It is good to support everyone—one noted that the support for women is not always strong in our institutions, for example.
• We appear to largely agree on what we are about, with a lot of new ideas.
• Good thing to connect to the younger people, too.
• We each enter The Conversation at different stages of the group, at different stages of our lives.

In preparation for next week’s Conversation:
Each of you, please post one programmatic idea to the blog. The question to address: What are some of the activities you want us to engage in.

Recap for October 7, 2007

2007-10-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

One Conversation member is starting an amputee support group, and will be telling us more about it at the project develops—which appears to be imminent. She told us about a chance meeting with a person who has resources and a desire to do exactly that. Big round of applause at the story.

Another member read a draft letter addressed to the chair of the Tacoma School Board. The letter emphasized the need for a superintendent search that emphasized the right skills and experience at meeting the District goals to real ALL students, to involve the public in the process. We discussed the perceptions of people attending the last Board meeting, and several reported an unease at the lack of critical Board questions about important issues raised. Someone raised the possibility that the Board is moving slowly toward a search process, and that a safe option would be to retain the current acting superintendent. Remember a previous acting superintendent was invited in to pour oil upon the waters, and stayed for most of a decade. We discussed the importance of being active on this.

Conversation members are reminded that the schools group has published a website that keeps track of some of their conversations, at www.plu.edu/~olufsdw/tps/tacoma_schools_policy.htm.

It might be a good idea, said one Conversation member, to have the Conversation devote a session to keeping us all informed of the various projects members are working on. Projects that have a community impact may need to consciously build political coalitions—with unions, with community groups, and so on—and to self-consciously build a public information campaign to get the word out and put pressure on the institutions that need to change. At later points in the Conversation others referred to this as a model worth emphasizing—perhaps we should devote a session to it—perhaps next week.

One member observed “this school board is weak, and we should not let it rebuild things on the same shaky foundation,” suggesting there is a real danger that Board members should be pushed in the direction of action. We heard another report from someone in the study session before the last Board meeting who said it was apparent the Board considered the current acting superintendent as here for the long haul. Oh, oh. It appears there are plenty of reasons to be concerned that the Board will back off from its search for a new superintendent.

We also discussed the tone and content of a letter passed around to the Board. Several Conversation members expressed a desire to sign a stronger letter, and the group that composed the letter reported on their discussions of the issue.

One observation, coming off the self-described state of the school board group connected to the Conversation as a group of people who care about schools, or words to that effect: the Board should be aware that something is up, should be concerned with power emerging in the community, and should from time to time be shocked out of its complacency. For example, the actions that contributed to the departure of the previous superintendent were one phase, and many of the people who took part in that let others know they are in for the long haul. Key people involved in that are currently working on school board issues. It was recommended that we allow ourselves to be comfortable with the occasional chaos that might come from a demonstration, and also keep up the work of political organization.

One Conversation member talked to us about disproportionate minority confinement (DMC)—“a condition that exists when a racial/ethnic group representation in confinement exceeds the representation in the general population.” [At times our conversation also used DMC to refer to disproportionate minority contact, since the issue is wider than confinement.] For example, African-Americans age 10-17 yrs old make up 11% of Pierce County residents of similar age, but they are 30-35% of those in detention, and they stay in jail longer than others. All children should be treated equally in the juvenile justice system, disparities in detention is in part the result of processes that are widely considered to be neutral—and so the group described in this talk is working to draw attention to policies that produce DMC. The group understands the need to generate accurate and reliable data, and the need to get people involved who can be effective in affecting decisions in institutions (prosecutors, judges, police, mental health officials, school officials, counselors, and so on).

African Americans in high school get expelled from the Tacoma schools at three times the rate of whites, suspended at two and a half times the rate of whites, and for junior high school the disproportionate rages are two and a half times the expulsion rate, and over twice the suspension rate. In the juvenile justice system in Pierce County sees African Americans get rearrested at three times the rate as for whites.

This is obviously a call for looking at DMC. We heard the ways the group works on these problems. One thing they worked on was alternatives to detention—so found and came up with ideas that police, prosecutors and courts could buy into. They were able to get the state legislature to fund some projects, mostly for the kids who need help and are not accused of crimes against others.

Conversation members might be interested in an article in today’s New York Times, Week in Review section, on this very issue. The article describes the problem, asks when DMC becomes a constitutional issue—but unfortunately is not very critical. It suggests, at the end, that many of the actions that lead to DMC are “unintentional,” by which the article means the officials are not aware of how their actions produce DMC. The article also places the discussion in the context of the present federal court system—where judges increasingly do not recognize racial segregation, even segregation by law, as being a constitutional problem.

Conversation members talked about some of the details of policies that contribute to DMC, such as the need for telephones in the home for certain alternatives to detention to be applied, another example of how many rules treat poor people differently. (Newer technology for at-home monitoring alternative to detention relies on cell phone technology, which has kept lots of kids out of detention. This requires that governments spend money on such technologies.) We heard many examples of the way programs unintentionally lead to DMC. Each program needs to be tested, tested, tested, pay attention to outcomes, and assemble the evidence & bring it to the attention of the group that can do something about it (recall the mention above of the committee that involved prosecutors, judges, police, mental health officials, school officials, counselors). One member emphasized that the agencies that are represented at such inclusive tables may not themselves have paid much attention to disproportionate representation. One example was glaring. Best-practices inventories emphasize the importance and different outcomes that emerge from all-white vs. relatively diverse organizations. Cultural competency is not automatic.

One member observed that a group of assembled policymakers, administrators that are responsible for state programs dealing with juvenile justice, are overwhelmingly white. Other members of the Conversation shared that this is common.

We heard several examples of how the laws have become more punitive, and the default presumption on kids that don’t go to school, or kids that are mentally ill and disruptive, is to lock them up as irresponsible—yet this strongly contributes to DMC. One institutional feature we heard about was the October surge in expulsions—so the school district gets budget credit for the kid, but then the kid is expelled, and state money does not follow the kid to help finance needed services. And such kids fall far behind in the accumulation of credits, in preparation for the WASL, and the increased likelihood that such kids will run into the police. One member described working with such kids, and made the point that there are almost no services for them right now. The other side of the laws becoming more punitive is that money for services is drying up—for example, there is a dire need for a full-time halfway house for school-aged kids on the street, but the barriers to funding, licensing, and getting a site for such a facility are so high. IT IS DISCOURAGING. There sure is a lot of work to do. Several members present described the discouraging experiences they have had. No easy answers, but one member encouraged them to ‘set their face like flint’ and be present, and speak up, at these institutions where policies are made. Members were encouraged to join the group,

One member described the school system as being designed to cull out 30% of the students. It is designed this way, it produces this outcome. The leader of this discussion is part of an organization works precisely with those 30%. Several members emphasized that this is unacceptable, and that we need to hear that from the School Board.

What is it that we need? What if the Governor of the State of Washington was here. What would you tell her? Ideas from various members
• the people assembled at the table have to have experience that enables them to connect to the kids, to understand the situation that produced the situation kids find themselves in.
• Bring parents in
• Equity
• restorative justice involves kids and parents
• full time counselors, nursing, full time safe place for kids and parents also open evenings
• legislation to support small schools
• timing of schools ---adolescents not awake til 9:00
• no kicking kids out for no reason
• deinstitutionalize the racism in the schools, we kick out 30% and feed them into the prison system.
• I think we need fabulous breakfast served, so many kids need it.
• We need two adults in each classroom.
• Make things smaller, stop having 6 periods where teachers have 150 kids they deal with, have more block times…. make 6th grade elementary again.
• Accountability—teachers, administrators, schools are allowed to continue worst practices. And coupled with that we need a support system to help those who change those outcomes.
• Several people mentioned the importance of having parents and families involved in the ways we address this.
• One person asked, Who is making money off of the poor?

There is a list of things people want. OK, how do we get there?
• Parents need to be involved, but we organize the world of work to make that difficult for some people—especially those who have low income jobs and often more than one job. This is a tough one—at least, the agencies that officials DO have control over can change and make flexible hours possible.
• More money needs to be spent on serious job training programs, to give more folks chances to earn the incomes that are associated with more political participation.
• Make it easier to vote—reinstate the vote of people who have been in jailed, and make registration easier or automatic (half of the people who did not vote, but could have, in the last two presidential elections had moved in the previous 18 months).
• Individuals can examine their values, there is so much to do, we can each clarify our values and decide what piece we can take on to be spiritually, emotionally, and physically healthy—and show up ready to work on the piece you have chosen as important.
• We could give parents some kind of tax break for involvement in after-school programs, and perhaps a voucher system for supporting after-school programs.
• Every classroom can have an adult assistant, and make sure there sufficiently diverse people there.
• It is possible to have the adult assistants be decently paid, select many from the students who are precisely the people who have not succeeded, have them in a work-study as part of a college program. Get them on the road to a degree while they can be helping in the classrooms.
• small class sizes, and have teacher pay linked to results in this regard.
• Foreign languages taught from the first grade.
• Teach citizenship and civic education, and problem-solving/negotiation skills.
• No school should have more students than it was designed to have.
• Teachers need to have cultural diversity classes.

Now, what you willing to do?
• work with a group that has picked one of these issues.
• Go to the league of Women Voters, and the ACLU, to help pay the debt of released felons.
• Work through my music to advocate, and also through a community group that does this.
• I’m going to make the group I’m part of more powerful, figure out what it is we can do to be more effective.

This simple exercise suggests we need to push our thinking on this—before you get to the roadblocks, there are commitments you can make.

The Conversation wants to support these commitments to action. They are important. We also want to celebrate the life of the mind, too, and not let action discourage us from taking hard looks at the world. We need to nourish ourselves, and feed whatever it is that keeps us engaged.

Dexter said “We need the activist arm to be pushing us, but I would like an activist arm that is not a blunt instrument, an activist arm that is not easily dismissed.” Alton McDonald has done some work—he is a non-attorney who shows up to be a voice for African Americans arrested for various things. He found a place for himself, he takes action. Good example for us. Let us not buy into the all-too-common duality between theory and practice. It is not one or the other, we need to have a balance between our Conversation and our actions.

We heard from So Just, they got some publicity, they are calling in the pledges, and if there are others who can contribute or want their business cards put into the paid advertisement, now is the time. They could really use $500. They are applying for Grant funding next year. Most important, bring people, show up yourself. It is important to have 100 people here Saturday, at 11. Be there.

Redeeming the Vision this year will be Saturday, January 20, 2008, at Urban Grace, probably at 2 pm.. Tuesday, Oct. 9, and every two weeks thereafter, 6pm @ UPS, is the planning committee schedule. All are invited to be part of the planning group.

Emails will remind you of the upcoming fundraiser for United for Peace of Pierce County.
We are planning a February forum, perhaps at Kings Books, on the possibilities for partnerships in the civil rights communities. That program is in the process of being planned, stay tuned for more.

Pierce College Nov. 29 will have Michael Eric Dyson speaking. Call the Student programs office at Pierce, charge will be $15.

Recap for September 30, 2007

2007-10-14T17:45:00.001-07:00

Both notetakers were absent this week. A permanent hole in our archives. :(

Recap for September 23, 2007

2007-09-23T19:21:00.001-07:00

Today we want to talk about immigration. We might hear from Mona, Dalton, and Dexter as a way to introduce the topic. [That was the plan, anyway. At 11:30, we were still talking about the Planning Summit issues. It turned out to be important.]

Two first-time members were with us today, one of whom chairs the Pierce County’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Committee. Also, Elly Claus-McGahan, candidate in the upcoming Tacoma School Board election, was with us. We went around the room to have people briefly describe themselves, and we mostly focused on what we bring to and get from the Conversation.

October 4, the Broadway Center will have a display and discussion Community dialog with the African Heritage Community. The doors open at 6, program from 6:30-8:30, free admission. Warning: A Nationally Recognized Star will be there.

Dexter told us about the recent Race & Pedagogy Planning Summit. The events went well, and the room was full. He assured us that continuing efforts the organization will keep the high standards, and keep a strong connection to local talent. The keynote presentation by Letecia Nieto, for example, was first rate. We heard from NCORE, from the U. Mich. National Institute on Diversity, and from the College Success Foundation, and from a program at U. of Oregon. The working groups, comprised of about 45-50 overall, and about 35 attending all planning sessions, produced reports and discussed them. He noted that 2012 lights up a room whenever they are part of the group.

Saturday, he said (agreeing murmurs around the room), was “a head turner.” The first question raised at the plenary session was asked by an invited guest: the community partners have observed this work going on, and they asked what the University would do to support these efforts. The question was asked in a different way, then—has the University been supportive of the main people who were behind it? And they were rather straightforward. The message was that the University had not been supportive. So that issue is on the table. The University president attended the session, and he responded to the discussion.

Think carefully about the penalties of success for anyone doing racial justice work. Think about Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. Some of the talk on campus is that the University is somehow devoting too many resources on the RPC, or that it has somehow hijacked the agenda of the University. This seems to uncomfortably fit into a pattern of Whites interpreting such work as Blacks somehow imposing themselves on a community. So it seems like the document to emerge from the Planning Summit (coming soon) has some pointed issues to address. Some of this has to do with how RPC fits into the University’s Civic Scholar Initiative program, which is the administrative rubric that contains RPC. One possibility is that RPC is bigger than the CSI umbrella. And some of it might have to do with the ways that teachers and administrators engage racism.

Several comments around the room emphasized the importance of the work of RPC. Institutional change is needed, and real change will come from engaging the community AND from inside organizations. The critical issue raised at Saturday was how faculty and administrator allies at the University will cultivate the conversation and encourage meaningful change. “The work of antiracism, and dismantling white supremacy, will be advanced significantly when there are more people who in an earlier era were called race traitors.” We need race traitors on all sides of the race issue. White people need to challenge white people about race. It is a real issue that someone like Dexter gets labeled as an agitator. The work has to be shared widely. The metaphor of the Old Guard seems to be useful to understanding the dynamics, and offers a constructive challenge. People support things like RPC, but the willingness to do something about it is very uneven. A University president, for example, is faced by a range of people, some of whom do not at all support RPC. So, supporters will have to make themselves heard in a president’s office, because the Old Guard will surely make themselves heard. There were a couple of recognitions of Grace’s contributions to RPC at the planning summit, and this was the first time her central role has been acknowledged.

It was also observed that among the college campuses in Tacoma, these dynamics are there, at all of them. So this is a challenge for, for example, the teachers of teachers. This is a problem, the production of teachers who are not skilled at or tuned into the need to do the work of serving the least well served of our students.

The picture we are painting of education and race is actually an old one. One member advised us to look at the book, Deep like the rivers : education in the slave quarter community, 1831-1865, Thomas L. Webber, Norton, 1978. And, check the “Portland Baseline Essay Series” online, at http://www.pps.k12.or.us/depts-c/mc-me/essays.php.

The discussion moved to patterns of racism in different parts of the country. In our part, people talk about equality (you can be among us), but the acceptance of nonwhites into leadership roles, or in full recognition of their professional work, is not there. The discussion had several threads. The work of justice is everywhere, folks.

One suggestion: maybe we can have a White Privilege conference here. We discussed several pieces of white privilege, and the group here is supportive of the idea.

As one person pointed out, racism is a white people’s problem. And it is not all privilege. One focus on the problem of white privilege is to look at what it does to everyone.

One of the things we try to do through the Conversation is to support and empower people to work in their spheres. People involved in the peace movement in our county, for example, need to tell their story and to let us know what is going on. One idea that came up this morning is perhaps a way to provide such support: Examine the disconnect between progressive groups that are predominantly white, and those that are not.

Examine the possibilities, for example, if the white faculty on a university campus were to put on a white privilege conference. That would be a different dynamic than one organized by the faculty of color who usually put on such things. When white people become the ones who extend the invitation to examine racism and white privilege, the level of honesty goes up, the dynamic has shifted. That would be a pretty good day.

RPC might be well served to have a backup plan, in the event that UPS does not offer sufficient support—the advice from one member, and from others, is to not let the limitations of a particular university shape the design of what can be important work.

PLEASE ATTEND THE SCHOOL BOARD MEETING, THIS THURSDAY AT 6:00.

The Seattle Friends of the Library annual

Rhapsody in Bloom hosts Steve and Kristi Nebel this Tuesday, 7:30-9:30. You are invited to come hear their set. See the list of events they are involved in at www.geocities.com/steveandkristinebel

Conversation Recap for September 16, 2007

2007-09-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

Intros: A couple of new people today.

No story today

The Education Group presented case studies and we broke up into 2 groups where we read the cases and discussed the following questions:

What more does this parent/guardian need to know and be able to do?

How the “system” works
Allies who can help with knowledge and support
The system needs to be held accountable
Third party allies to put pressure on the issue and highlight the illegality of the situation
System has their legal department and teachers have their union but parents and student have no structure

How can the Conversation or its members be allies to parents/ of student in TPS?

Begin to collect the stories and tell them and advocate for systemic change
Question—how would that be structured?
We would have to create a structure, collect the stories in a way that protects the identity of the tellers, we would have to provide some method of demonstrating the “truth”
Question—are schools immune to CPS? Parents are held accountable when children are abused—why not school personnel?

Even without stories, could try to raise awareness in schools, like offer to facilitate assemblies & other group activities—like Leticia Nieto, posters a la crimethinc.org
Also help with teacher training/in-services
Pierce County Sexual Assault Center BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse) accompany children to court. Maybe we could do something similar—be a crowd
Somehow institute listening partnerships between students
A good way to start—approach the school dist. “we have all these stories, obviously you have a problem and we can help with it." If not accepted, take stronger action

There used to be a PELT and a Family Involvement Center try to reconstitute? Offer as another part of the solution so the system knows why to value that effort.

How to let people know we are collecting stories?

Tina is on PTA and sends out newsletter
Get contact info for all PTA’s
“Safety Box” for students to put stories in

How do we deal with credibility—both students and parents feel safe in sharing and some way to triangulate the story so that we can verify the truth of the story?

There are people within the Conversation that do this kind of thing for a living who can help with the structure of story collecting so that they are properly vetted

Themes drawn from both cases:

Parental level of knowledge/education
Living situation instability
Intelligence, capability, resiliency

What can we do as the Conversation to act as allies?

Invite youth to come and express themselves creatively, musically, artistically or in writing. Invite the media

One member has attended 4 youth forums, videos made, stories told media would not come out. But there’s money out there to be applied for.

Another member suggested that at So’Just youth get the chance to tell their story/rap their story.

All agreed that it’s critically important that we take part in creating place and space for the empowered activity of youth to occur.

It was a very good discussion today. Need to ask ourselves how we move awareness into action.

Announcements:

Facilitators Training - Act Against Violence
$25 donation RSVP Catherine’s Place Sept 27-28 9am-3:30 and 9am-1pm
Dr. Dorothy Anderson, President of the Tacoma Urban League
Call 572-3547 for more information

PC AIDS Foundation has made 96k from its last AIDS Walk!

Parker Palmer event next Sunday, Eve can take 4 people in her car and will leave from the Conversation. Eve will be emailing those who signed up to confirm participation.

So’Just, Report: We are now getting organizations to have booths. Goal for funding is $3,000, we have $1,850 and need to get to $2,000 by tomorrow to proceed.

We have an offer of free solar power to power the equipment for sound by SolaRichard

School Board Action Committee Report: Already begun having an impact as school board members have mentioned a need for a structure for greater dialogue between school board and community. The organization is developing.

Next meeting is Thursday 20th @ 6PM at Colleen and Steve’s

Suggestion that each upcoming week’s topic be included on the blog

4022 N. 27th St. 6pm on Tues. Sept. 25th
Debate 21st @ King’s Books Debate on whether to get out of Iraq or not.

Steve & Kristi Nebel will play:

22nd 8pm @ Matrix Coffee House in Chehalis (Cool place--I went to college with the owner)

5th 7-9pm @ Rhapsody in Bloom

UFPPC’s fundraiser Salon Society 2nd Sunday Series—need a facilitator for a discussion on the works of Kurt Vonnegut

Wed. through Sat. Weekly Anti-War Vigils organized by UFPPC

Weds. 5-6pm @ Federal Courthouse on Pac Ave.
Thurs. noon-1pm @ Farmer’s Market on 9th & Broadway
Fri. 5-6pm @ Johnny’s Seafood on Ruston Way
Sat. 12:30-1:30pm @ 38th & Steele in front of Border’s Books

UFPPC meets at 1st Congregational on 1st and 3rd Thursdays @ 6:30 and 7pm respectively

Lyceum Lecture Series on Tuesdays @ Evergreen-Tacoma 10-11:30am and 6-7:30pm

Notable Speakers:

October 16
Mike Colson, Retired Navy Chaplain, Iraq war veteran - Topic: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

October 23
Maxine Hayes, Washington State Health Officer - Topic: Public Health

October 30
Suheir Hammad, poet and playwright, born in Amman, Jordan - Ms. Hammad is an internationally recognized author and performer

November 13
Fred Bonner, Seattle Municipal Court Judge - Topic: Youth Diversion Program

For other speakers see Events & Activities Calendar on Campus

Steve and Kristi with their friend Joe Debenedictis

2007-09-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hello:
I know that some of you have heard us play on a Sunday morning at the Conversation. Here is a video for those of you who haven't heard us. Here we are at the Mocha Moo Coffeehouse as the featured act for the night with our good friend, Joe Debenedictis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qNCYd_R8Go

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzUApuOyZg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SoZ-USXTs

We continue to attend the Conversation, and quite enjoy the topics, and the people. It is something that I would have done long ago had it been available. We are looking forward to playing at SoJust. It may be our last performance with Joe, as he fell in love and is going east to Ohio a few days after we play. I hope you'll all be able to be there to hear 2012, Kusikia, Bolero, Patrick, and Steve and Kristi Nebel with Joe Debenedictis. Steve Nebel

PS:
If you'd like to see us in concert sooner than Oct. 13th, we'll be @ The Matrix Coffeehouse, 434 NW Prindle St., Chehalis, WA, Saturday, September 22, @ 8pm - The Matrix has food, a great PA, and a comfortable setting for us all. - Phone (360)740-0492. All ages. $6 admission.
We'll be @ Rhapsody in Bloom & Café Latte Coffeehouse, 3709 6th Ave., Tacoma, WA On Tuesday, September 25th 7:30-9:30pm.

Conversation Recap for September 9, 2007

2007-09-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Today we heard Dorothy’s story. The questions ranged over fascinating topics—the need to pass on stories to younger generations, the difficulties in tracking down the stories we did not hear, the important historical events

Diane Powers joined us today, to talk about hunger. Diane helped to organize the Hunger Walk last year, over 1,500 walkers, and they raised almost a quarter million dollars. This year’s Hunger Walk has a website for you to check, and that allows you to donate. See www.pchungerwalk.org. Diane is the Deputy Director of Associated Ministries. You can see the things they do at www.associatedministries.org.

The latest way to refer to ‘hunger’ in official circles as ‘food insecurity.” Among the difficulties presented to poorer families is the relative cheapness of poor nutrition. And hunger makes everything worse—harder to get to work and work, The US 12.4 million or so children in ‘food insecure’ households, by official count. 43% of families with children with one parent working have a need for food aid. And there are 140,000+ people in Pierce county who seek some kind of food help, and half are under nineteen. A big piece of this is the lack of affordable housing. Some families have to pay three-fourths or more of their income toward housing, leaving little for food.

Summer months are a difficult time to get food aid—people who commonly give to food banks during winter and holidays do so less often in Summer.
The first Sunday in October, the 7th, is this year’s Pierce County Hunger Walk. Half of the money you donate goes to the emergency food network in Pierce County, and half of your donation can be targeted—if you want to send it to Nativity House, for example, you can check that.

One difficulty with distribution is that not everyone knows the location of food banks. Some church basements have food at certain times of day, a food bank location has recently moved, and so on. There is a list of available food banks. Please check them online, at www.fishfoodbanks.org. Perhaps it is a good idea to look up where the ones are around where each of us live.

One member mentioned that his visit to a food bank. He emphasized the importance of giving money, and not just your food up in the cupboards. Fresh produce and other perishables, and a balanced diet require choices among those putting together the cart full of things to take home. Making choices like this possible at a food bank are a big part of building a way to provide the aid with dignity.

One Member reminded the group that SoJust is scheduled for October 19, and the festival will include an opportunity to donate food and coats.

One member focused on the connection between affordable housing and hunger. The price of housing is going up up up, and the dynamics of the construction industry produce housing that can not be afforded by the average household income in the County (about $56,000 right now). Affordable housing is driving the dynamics of hunger for a large number of families in Pierce County. It is difficult to get a grip on the hunger if we don’t also act on the housing side of the equation.

The Pierce County Asset Building Coalition works to encourage families to build assets—helping folks understand how money works, how banking works, how to do taxes (lots of eligible people do not file for the Earned Income Credit, for example). Financial literacy is important here. There is a lot of money that has been unclaimed—for instance, the unclaimed EIC. By one count there was $6.5 million available to families in Pierce County that could come in.

Another member described the storefront loan operations that take large chunks of the money of poor families. Some are payday loan operations. Some are the places that will prepare your taxes and offer to loan the money, for fees and high interest, due them from the IRS. Some banks practice predatory operations, using the information they get on people who are working with the storefront operations.

People find themselves in these situations for complicated reasons. Someone late with the rent has to pay $50 the first day, $75 if it is two days late, and so on. And the fine has to be paid first if one brings the rent in two days late. So the storefront finance companies can look like the best option on a particular day here.

“The whole system is against being poor.” Nice statement from a member. One member expressed frustration at the ‘give a man a fish, you feed him today; teach him to fish, and ou feed him for all his days’ stories. There aren’t the fish out there. We have families who have tough times getting jobs, the economy is full of opportunities to go after the money that comes to poorer families. We have soldiers serving in the war whose families are on public assistance or even homeless.

This is a tough dialog in the USA. The underlying understanding of dessert insists that we examine individual virtue prior to making sense of obligation to our fellow citizens. So if someone has financial difficulty, the tendency in the public discussion is to look for examples of bad choices that, done differently, might have made for better outcomes. And, we hear the leap made from there that the need we see around us is less a demand on our own resources. This dynamic does not encourage constructive dialog. Remember the outlines of the place of the individual in capitalism were written in the 17th century, perhaps best laid out systematically by John Locke. Locke also understood that the “workman digging my turf” mattered little, could not voluntarily move from one parish to another, could not vote, and lacked political rights we now take together. The prevailing ideology was an explanation for why it is OK to not care about those people. But this is the 21st century. It is difficult to find a compelling explanation for why we should not care, today, about poor people.

Dexter introduced the topic of conspiracy theories and the creation of wealth. The creation of wealth has an attendant outcome, and that is the creation of poverty. Recall the story today, that giving out turkeys to homeless people does not make a lot of sense. Dexter suggested that giving out turkeys is about ‘the camera.’ Giving out turkeys on thanksgiving is a good news story about making us one great national family. And then if the story includes the tale of someone selling those donated turkeys, the public response is clear—the real problem is labeled as the pathologies in ‘those people’ and so we have less of an obligation to them. And, the businesses supporting the donations get a free pass on creating wealth, and suggest it is OK since they are not to blame for the underlying pathologies that allegedly afflict the poor. A big piece of this is what is legal. With the example of the ongoing discussions on reforming the air traffic control system. The airline and related companies want others to pay for it—the most recent accusation is that the owners of private jets and planes do not have to pay their share of the system, and that they should. In a big way, the fight is about how the rules determine our mutual obligations,

“If you are part of the system of the creation of wealth, I have learned to say, I have no problem with you.” But, with two other shoes to drop: His challenge to us, is that we ought not to operate on whether our behavior is legal, but we should instead ask if it is just. This group should be part of the discussion about what is just, and he also wants to challenge us when we retreat into our own private spaces, to ask ourselves how we will deal with this. At the Community Partners meeting, for example, we have food left over. How about letting some others in to eat what is left. He is told by the University that it has to be eaten by the group for whom they provide it. It gets right at risk; they have rules about liability.

The framework of laws enfranchises these questionable standards of justice. That which is legal is the bottom line. But we need to figure out these examples, and challenge them. The new bottom line must be, is it just.

On announcements:

Diane told us about the Broadway Coalition for the Performing Arts. On Thursday October 4, she is inviting people to the new Pantages Theater Lobby, 9th & Broadway. The event is from 6:30-8:30 pm, and it will be a chance to look at and give some feedback about the Arts and you, how it can connect to the community.

August 14th, Dr. Antoine Johnson was racially profiled in DuPont. He was driving, was pulled over, was never told why he was stopped. He is going to go to the Dupont City Council, this Tuesday, September the 11th at 7:00, and invites everyone to come to the meeting to support his call for justice. At the DuPont exit, turn West, 318 Barksdale Rd. One member of the Conversation observed she had been pulled over four times, and had never connected it with profiling. The tales of being stopped elicited a murmur through the crowd. They didn’t seem like things just everyone would be pulled over for.

A SoJust organizer passed out a flyer for the event. October Fall Festival, October 13, from 11-3. Right here at Evergreen. People can please do postering in their neighborhood. The event is free, and the group needs another almost $2,000 to put it on. So supporters are encouraged to donate $100. The need is now, so event parameters can be organized. So we need to get up to $2,000 by Monday the 17th.

This coming Tuesday the 12th, the group keeping track of School Board meetings will be meeting at 6. Please consider attending school board meetings.

On Sept. 11 “The Power of Nightmares” will be shown WA State Historical Museum, at 7.
Sept. 25, Steve and Christy will be playing at Rhapsody in Bloom on 6th Avenue, at 7pm.
Christy’s Salon Society is meeting the 14th of October, at the home near here. It will be a discussion of Kurt Vonnegut. A jazz group will perform, suggested donation will be $15. See Christy for details.

Wed. the 12th Evergreen is having an Open House, 4-7, geared at people who might be thinking about restarting, and finishing, their bachelor’s degree. Know someone? Encourage people to bring unofficial copies of transcripts and an income tax return, and they can get a one-stop package of information about what all it takes to get college done.

Christine encouraged Members to look up what is happening with the Education bill now making its way through Congress, and wrote their Senators to tell them what you want to see in an education bill.

Dexter announced the public event at the Thursday the 13th public event at the Race & Pedagogy Planning Summit. It will be at 7-9p.m., Schneebeck Auditorium (the music building). Tickets are free, but call 879-3100 to arrange for them. A good speaker is part of the program, and you will also see a short video with highlights from the Race & Pedagogy Conference from last year.

Conversation Recap for September 2, 2007

2007-09-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

We began this sunny morning Locked Out of the Evergreen building. The Lavolds graciously rescued us by opening their home. Lucky for all of us, they have collected chairs over the years. The temperature was a little over 65f, a slight breeze, the sun poked through light low clouds, a perfect morning for a stroll. The assembled party heartily thanked them. Later in the morning several people agreed that getting locked out was a blessing.

The food was moved here with us, ‘Rosalind’s potato collards surprise,’ which people raved about. Your recorder heard the following: “You should try this,” “mmm this is good,” “I love the spices,” “Oh, that is good,” “want me to get some more?”, “our food is always special.”

Julia passed around an article by Dave Grossman, author of Learning to Kill, in the Summer issue of Greater Good. The article described the widespread reluctance of people to kill others, and the ways we purposely desensitize people to make killing happen. You can see an article about Grossman’s topic: Dan Baum, “The Price Of Valor: We train our soldiers to kill for us. Afterward, they’re on their own,” The New Yorker, Issue of 2004-07-12.

The biggest pow-wow in the area is happening now, near Chief Leschi School, near Puyallup off of River Road, down Pioneer way, past the nursery and turn.

We had two new members this morning, and it made sense to have each person say a couple of sentences about themselves. This was an interesting process, it seems like the norms of the two rooms (Evergreen and here) are quite different. People relax more in a home.

Today we heard Amy’s story. Man, oh, man, a standing ovation. Several people said, You Must Publish This.

Some of the discussion was about connecting with students left behind, as the story included an account of a classroom where the difficult students were put together. The kids knew this was a dumping ground. A central idea here, which the assembled group emphasized in discussion, was that we must refuse to call these kids Bad. Getting to know each student is a big piece of it. There is a story about the dedication needed on the part of teachers. Leaders in education need to know this, and remember it. In the discussion or Lincoln high school, we were all encouraged to go on a tour of the renovated building.

Dexter read a piece called “Education,” focusing on what we expect from teachers—in institutions that mark enduring inequalities, where we see “the valuing of trivialities in a land of value.” Teachers, in spite of all the ways we ask them to do a lot without sending along enough resources, are a sign of our hope. This was directed at Amy’s story.

Following her invitation to visit her classroom at Lincoln, we went around the room and made commitments to visit Amy’s class. One thing going on, described by Cherlyn, was a grant she was able to get to fund a mentor program. Really, folks, she means it. You can do something to help or support what she’s doing. There are opportunities to be mentors, to talk to the class(es), to ask the class to tell you about something. Contact information on that Mentor program: call Kurt Miller, Director of Education Initiatives, at 253-272-0771, ext. 18.

One thing that came up was the “Knowledge is Power” schools, or KIP schools. Look them up. It is possible that Tacoma is a good place for such a school.

Dexter started telling us about the American Leadership Forum (more in coming weeks) where he just spent a week. Weird, us being so busy all of the time, but if we step off the world for a week, it actually keeps on spinning. He also described the upcoming Race & Pedagogy planning summit, just a couple of weeks away, and the speakers and participants who will be there. You can help this initiative by supporting R&P: Help fill the auditorium, for the large evening event (Thursday the 13th), and at the end of the next two days the gathering will produce a document that brings together the ideas that came up at the planning sessions. The Thursday evening large gathering is a message to the University on how much the community supports R&P. Information on how to get the tickets will go out to Conversation members in an email, soon. Students are welcome, so if you know some, clue them in.

Friday, Sept. 7, 2-4, is the next R&P community partners meeting. You can come to this—and, the food is always good, consider yourself invited.

Next, Dexter showed us a slide show of the hurricane that just hit Jamaica. The public account of the hurricane, issued by the government and followed by the media, focuses on the damage to Kingston. But the official report that “we were spared” does not pay attention to places like Dexter’s home town, on the coast, Old Harbour Bay. The pictures showed devastation and poverty. The people who have left, such as Dexter, are all over the world, but have organized to do some relief and development work. The town grows poverty, so the need is great. In a town where pretty much everyone is poor, it is the poorest that are hit the hardest. For example, structures that were not made of bricks and blocks were blown and washed away, particularly down on the salt flats. There are a few thousand people with nowhere to go, whose need for space and a way to make a living draw them to this place, and who can not afford solid materials. One large need is to have a well-built electrical power system. The fishing boats of the town were damaged a great deal and the storm pushed boats through houses.

This was the worst storm the people there had ever seen. One told him this made Ivan look like play.

Dexter asked for support for the group he is a part of, The Yard Project. Last time, after an earlier Hurricane (Ivan), his group raised $125,000 to build the houses he showed us in some of the slides. Some sorting out of the process is still going on, so be prepared to receive an email announcing the details of what and how to give. You can send the email to people you know, and magnify the support.

Some of the ensuing discussion touched on the role of government, and the self-help work that goes on in communities. The dominant public philosophy deemphasizes the importance and legitimacy of government. Government does provide many things for some people—ironically, the elites who trumpet the ‘government is the problem’ message are served best—and the poor do not get the same level of support. We discussed several facets of this. Some of them had to do with the intersections public philosophy and the color line in America. The notion that government is this Other thing, that delivers benefits to particular groups, is not particularly helpful (except, perhaps, as a way to contest elections). Every single business in the country gets subsidies of some kind. And there are thousands of governmental units, it is not one thing—nation, states, counties, school districts, and so on. And there are possibilities to do something positive in the here and now. Conversation members know that the recent Superintendent of Tacoma public schools was dismissed, in large part, because of the efforts of citizens including some members of the Conversation. You can do something.

With the opening lockout, and the extraordinary story, and the look at the hurricane damage, today’s Conversation lasted further into the day. It was 12:30 when Dexter started to wrap things up. It is important to support people who are doing things for change, and let others know you are doing something about justice, fairness, and caring for human life.

Reminder: Wednesday, 6pm, at the Philbrooks, the group that meets to work on change in the Tacoma School Board, will be talking again. The upcoming election is an opportunity to get changes moving.

Also, the So’Just Planning Committee will meet Tuesday, 6:30pm at Noah’s house. 414 S. Division Lane. Go here to see the So’Just mssion.

Conversation Recap for July 22, 2007

2007-07-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

Today’s topic is delayed a week. Next week, environmental justice.

We began discussing the developing plans for the Fall Festival. The theme is Social Justice, and so far planning has covered the following topics.

• October 13, a Saturday, in the afternoon
• a name still in the works
• a mission statement (important for soliciting money)
• structure: a 3-4 hour event that keeps audience attention, keep it focused.

The plan is to have both music and art, booths, dancing and food. One discussion topic has been whether the program will be sufficiently representative of communities around Tacoma.

• located here at Evergreen (discussions have been started with Dr. Young). this has several advantages, including right size, sound system, location location.
• Money is, of course, a topic. How to organize (go for 501(3)c?), the costs of the site, and fundraising topics have been discussed. We discussed issues that arise over using another organization’s 501(3)c status.

The UPS student group, Students for a Democratic Society, has been working with the planning group, and has offered help and resources.

Conversation members are invited to make contributions to any of the above topics. This is not just about bands and music. The objective is to have an event that pursues the Conversation’s mission. We desire the event to be transformational for people who attend.

We also discussed the possibility of supporting existing scholarships as part of the funding structure of the events.

Dalton told us about the National Exchange Club, which has a national project for the prevention of child abuse. It is a topic that is often difficult to discuss, people have different views on what constitutes child abuse. But in light of recent events in Tacoma, it is clearly is something we can be discussing. See their website at http://www.nationalexchangeclub.com/.

Today we heard Steve Philbrook's story.

In the subsequent discussion we marveled at the twists lives take—the question, Why do people do the work they do and live where they do?, is always interesting. We also talked about the commitment underlying long-term relationships.

We discussed the current selection process for an interim Superintendent of Tacoma Schools, and for a permanent replacement. The Conversation may want to go on record to encourage taking a core mission keeping kids in school. A couple of people mentioned the retention rate for 9th graders at Foss High School (half of them not completing high school). We know who we are losing. There are tensions for the district. If more of the kids we are losing stay in school, WASL scores will drop. The incentives are perverse.

As several Conversation members noted, there is a distinct lack of public outrage about this. It is not apparently a big issue for the school board.

As recent hearings before a Senate subcommittee on education pointed out, the school problems we have hear are national in scope, and are a piece of the picture of inequality in the USA. Communities with few jobs for kids, deteriorating tax bases for cities, and so on, are part of a national crisis seldom noted in our politics and media. We should not be simple about this—the many pieces of the puzzle will include grassroots efforts, parental responsibility, more focused school district policies, and also shifts in national politics. The complexity of the problem is a reason why we should be attentive to the small steps possible to work on what is going on right here. After-school programs are part of it, for example.

Some Conversation members resisted the notion of framing the problem as complex. It might come down to inequality of wealth.

There are policies followed by our school district that produce identifiable outcomes. We can see the consequences of refusing to confront class divisions and racism. One way of taking a small step is to continue asking the school district administration for data about what is actually happening. For example, what about those ninth graders? What are the demographics of the ninth graders who do not graduate from high school? What are the demographics of students in various programs?

The Mimms Academy is working on supporting kids to stay in school, See their website at www.maxinemimmsacademy.org

Conversation Recap for July 15, 2007

2007-07-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

Cherlyn's Story

Carrie Little from the Emergency Food Network and runs Mother Earth Farm

Moved here from IL because of union husband. No work in IL, came out here for work.

Been a gardener whole life. Kicked out of master gardener program for being “too organic”

Husband was getting involved in labor organizing events. Had learned about an event in Tacoma in 1893 at Fireman’s Park. Gathering of almost everyone in Tacoma to talk about taking care of each other during the then depression. Got involved in trying to recreate that. A homeless man introduced to the gardens and met Bill Bichsel. Need help with garden? YES!

July 17th 1993 the event happened. Husband forced out of union because of that event. Too much attention brought on the union.

Met David Ottie and talked about how it would be great to work together. During 7-8 years after event, worked with Guadalupe Garden and had a farmer’s market here at People’s Park.

In 2000 David Ottie said “woman wants to give this land over to grow food for EFN.” 8 acres, great soil. No earthworms, though. Turned in 6th month notice at Guadalupe Garden.

Gave 70 tons of produce to food banks last year.

Real magic is in taking human beings into a collective. Not master gardeners, but school kids, women from Purdy. Also district court, community service people, mostly men doing 180-250 hours—come out with a bit of an attitude, to be honest. At the end of the day they each get a bag and told “go shopping” Great to see grown men skipping down the aisles. It’s most jazzing to get people connected. Not just preaching to the choir but invite our neighbors to get dirty.

One member asked about how to have a patch of land to grow own food.

CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), you buy a share of what the farmer grows.

Terry’s Berries and Zestful Harvest are 2 examples

Mother Earth may do something with some land bought with salmon restoration money. ME might take over 18 acres. It would be a fund raising effort for ME.

Other piece is to invite share holders into the community of the garden.

Seed saving is an important feature of ME because agri-business is constantly moving to patent the genetic material of seeds so they can “own” the seeds.

Question, how long take and what did you do to revitalize the soil at Mother Earth? Originally planned for 7 years to be in full production, but got there in 3 years. Compost, compost, compost. Neighbor has racehorses give organic feed and get manure.

Cover cropping (primarily legumes). Then plow it all in (with draft horses).

Not organic certified because don’t sell any of it. Gov’t won’t certify unless goods are sold rather than given away. Also Pierce Co. don’t see land as a farm.

How cleanse the earth? 160,000 pounds of compost. Cover cropping then rotated crops 2 acres at a time, cover cropping

Is there more support from political side? Yes, but they constantly need to have their hands held and bringing leaders to the farm.

Someone brought up the idea to take a field trip there.

Are there any adjacent farms that don’t use organic methods and is that a big problem for you? Biggest problem is WSU’s research farm 3 1/2 miles away. Just Google WSU and Monsanto. Very little corn but what is grown is surrounded by sunflowers, for example, and other isolation techniques plus crop rotation.

RoundUp ready crops, Monsanto gets money from gov’t.

What can we do?

Support locallygrown food, as organic as can be, but mainly make a relationship with food and who grows it. Also think seasonally. Should not be eating strawberries and corn in January. Eat greens and beets!

What’s wrong with GMOs anyway? Have actually found a reason to support genetically altered food. In the case of growing in space because that’s where we are going next. Important to do the research but not to set it free in the environment. Setting GMOs free into the environment has been the mistake. If we lose our honey bees, we have 5 years.

How protected is the farm? Is ME part of a trust? Have put in a proposal to have the family do that. Development is encroaching from all sides.

3 statesmen from the Puyallup tribe visited farm this past week. Chief archeologist, biologist and historian doing a cultural map of important. May just pull a “Port Angeles”
What about this new position called a farmbudsman. Good or mouthpiece for powers that be? There could be some value, in terms of building more open markets for growers. There is an upsurge in farmer’s markets.

Also need to preserve the farmland. Faith Dairy is closing tomorrow. Probably all turn into development.

Organic meat? Any teaming going on? Also, could high school kids come out to the farm and spend a few hours a week. Yes, wholeheartedly.

Recommend the Omnivores Dilemma. 120th and Vickery has organic grass fed, fee range meat. There are some other local people-Cheryl the Pig Lady, for example. Hope that next farm will have animals weaved in, involved in digging and fertilizing on site. Terry’s and Zestful Farm, on a limited scale.

Started small, 2 acres 60,000 lbs., now 70 tons (140,000 lbs.)

No sales, but volunteers are rewarded fruitfully!

Tear out your lawn and plant clover or wild flowers, if you don’t want to grow a garden.

Things that grow as “weeds” here are great-fennel, St. John’s Wort, clover, etc.

Conversation Recap for July 8, 2007

2007-07-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Another perfect day in the Northwest, many Conversation members were in a mood to hug.

We began with an exercise in communication. We divided into those who can see but not speak, and those who could speak but not see, with a task in organization. It showed us that many of our attempts at communication are unintelligible. The normal conventions of conversation obscure the ambiguities. People have different communication skills and techniques, and the exercise demonstrates the importance of our approaches to working with others. Oppositional conversation strategies are quite common in this world of ours. Many of the observations after the exercise looked at the complications of leadership, how it can emerge spontaneously, and subtly. Another theme we discussed was the development of how we work together. We each had to figure out how to play this game, and very different strategies emerged. And, many attempts at communication were not interpreted as intended. Many of us prefer to avoid uncertainty, and we want to understand the expectations in a situation. Classrooms are often structured around clear expectations, objectives, and behavioral requirements for everyone in the room, and exercises like this suggest there are many more things going on in learning. Several people noted the importance of having objectives for learnings, and at the same time creating the space for creativity.

This morning we heard Tina’s Story.

The discussion that followed examined the expectations we have in life, and how the ones commonly offered are sometimes difficult to reconcile with the seeing and doing something about justice issues. We also discussed how growing up we hear racist comments, and develop responses. Some times we make new sense of how those things emerged, a long time ago. Families can do a number on us, so to speak. Recall that phrase, “If you listen to my story, you won’t be able to hate me.” And, the popular culture images of the rural or small-town America, in a golden age, can lay claim to that story only because they ignore the racism, sometimes in subtle forms, and in some places outright systems of terror. We were reminded that many towns were ‘bucolic,’ in the sense of being safe and peaceful, a good place to live, during slavery.

We went over the schedule for the next couple of months. Remember, it along with the bigger documents that we sometimes refer to in notes, as well as some descriptions of earlier events in The Conversation, are found at www.condocs.blogspot.com.

We heard from Rosalind on the food we eat, part 2. We reconvened in the kitchen to discuss food over food.

In the kitchen, Rosalind set up an array of both packaged and basic foods—like, a box of crackers and a collard green. Several people confessed to their own foodisms, such as indulging too much in chocolate or carbs or sugar, or other things.

She shared several books to illustrate ideas about food and living. They included Michio Kushi’s book on cancer prevention, which emphasizes natural foods, vegetarian, and low inflammation foods. Another was about Ayurvedic foods (kitcheri recipe included below). Another advocated getting enough water (probably more than you drink now). Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Someone mentioned a middle eastern shop at 6th & Mildred.

Rosalind emphasized the importance of storing your food, including spices, in glass, not plastic.

We discussed limes, and Rosalind emphasized using as much of the whole lime as possible, including zesting the peel—it is where most of the nutrients are found. Someone suggested the highest use of a lime is in a gin & tonic.

She also described the importance of chewing whole foods that take a while to chew—your chewing begins many important processes that you use to pick up nutrients.

She passed around ginger slices, fresh, which is one of the ‘stars of the show’ when it comes to anti-inflammation. And she had us dip it into sea salt, which besides tasting great sets up more complete digestion of the ginger.

She talked about garlic for a while, and mentioned how you can use it raw, rubbed on sores, and cooked in various ways. It is anti-inflammatory, too.

She showed us a bowl of black beans, cooked. The darker the beans, the more antioxidants they contain. You can use asafoetida with it, if concerned about ‘illness.’ And there is always good old ‘Beano.’

She put together a tortilla piece that contained garlic (lots of cloves), cabbage (covered the garlic in the pan during steaming), a little olive oil, some red pepper, and a piece of sardine. Lightly fry the garlic, then steam it on low heat for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, then add the red pepper. Roll it up and eat. Oh, man, I’m going to do this at home.

Chili peppers have many, many benefits. Red pepper comes from them. Rosalind encourages everyone who doesn’t like it to give them a try. Mmmmm, red pepper.

Flax seed oil! (Your notetaker’s optometrist told him to take flax seed oil each day as prevention for dry eyes.)

Turmeric is used very widely in Indian cooking, and is used as an anti-inflammation agent. The guy who runs the Indian/Sikh store in the B&I, a good place to get a lot of the spices here, will tell you about turmeric. Careful, it makes things yellow.

Lots of folks liked the collards—stir fried up (they steam well) with garlic, cayenne, cumin, turmeric, and a little sea salt.

Several people expressed gratitude at the simple, tasty and healthy ideas.

Onions are cousins to Garlic, close family—and she argues they are very good for you in the same way as garlic. Uses them a lot, like garlic one of those foods that sweeps away various things you might not want in you.

Once the group had eaten, we retired back to the meeting room.

The group went over planning for the MLK event. Last year’s discussions of King’s writings, and how he has been treated in the celebrations, led to the organization of this past January’s event, that focused on the prophetic vision. Many of you remember how it went. The mission statement for that event mentioned this was to be an annual event, and something that complements the other events celebrating MLK in Tacoma.

Dexter read the overall vision statement. Last year planning starting late, about December 6. A group of about 8 people put it together, and perhaps half of that group will return to help this year, along with others who will join it. Dexter has lists of people and businesses that supported the event last year. Support is easier to get if we approach supporters early.

This year (2008) it will be Sunday, January 20. For people interested, we will set up an email list, circulate information, talk about program, place, and all of the details.

The planning group will be open, so that if people show up later and wish to contribute, we will allow that.

Last year the group emphasized that the event keep a distinct South Sound flavor, including local artists who work for social justice, and be very high quality. Also, we want to be able to pay the artists who are often called on to do things like this for social justice.

If we meet in July, we will want to get the fundraising started. We can do bimonthly meetings until November and December, when weekly meetings might be needed.

We discussed venue. Urban Grace, St. Charles, Lincoln, Bellarmine, and Mt. Tahoma were mentioned as possibilities. Volunteers were assigned to check the availability of each place.

The planning group will next meet on July 26, a Thursday, at 5:00, at 3901 N. 37th.

Mung Dal Kitchari (Vata)

• 1 cup basmati rice, white or brown. This makes very good leftovers, and the texture on the leftovers is far better if you use brown rice.
• ½ cup split mung dal. Much of the yellow mung dal contains food coloring, and after experiments I like the regular unhulled split mung dal.
• A tblsp. ghee
• 1 tsp black or brown mustard seeds (black allegedly have more flavor)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 2 pinches hing (asafoetida)
• 1 tsp tumeric, and it is fine to double this, more if you like.
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 cups water, I use vegetable stock. If you soak the dal for 4 or more hours, as maybe you should, cut this to 3 ½ cups water.
• chopped fresh ginger, maybe 2 tablespoons, adjust to taste.
• garlic, chopped, not in original recipe but I like it. Adjust to taste.

Rinse rice and mung dal. If you have time, soak the mung dal in water for 3 or 4 hours, and 24 hours is fine if you like to plan ahead. (If no time for soaking, you can aid digestibility by heating the dal in water to the boiling point, then dousing in cold water, repeat 2 or 3 times. Some folks if sensitive, use Beano.)

Do all measuring, chopping, spice mixes first, then start the heat.
Heat a good-sized pan, on medium. When it is up to temperature, add the ghee, mustard seeds, cumin, and hing. Stir or shake pan for a couple of moments until the mustard seeds start to pop.

Add chopped ginger (and garlic) and stir for a very short time.

Add the rice, mung dal, tumeric, and salt, stir to blend all with spices.

Add the water, bring to a boil. For white rice, let boil for 5 minutes uncovered, then turn to low and cover. Cook 20-25 more minutes, add 10 if in Boulder or higher elevations. For brown rice, leave out the mung dal for 20 minutes while you boil the rice and spices, then add the dal and let cook for 25 more minutes.

For serving, you can use whatever steamed vegetables are seasonal or to your taste. Try:
• beets, sliced and steamed, and beat greens, steamed.
• carrots, sliced and steamed, and chard or collards, chopped and steamed. Sliced steamed yams worked very well, as did bok choy.
• We always serve with chopped fresh ginger, slices of lime. Also good to have chopped cilantro, ghee, and your favorite hot sauces available, maybe some Bragg’s or regular soy sauce. Let each person adjust the mix. I’ve heard coconut is good with it.

Conversation Recap for July 1, 2007

2007-07-01T14:10:00.001-07:00

Dorothy’s story

Conversation revolved around experiences with desegregation efforts in the South.

What’s on the Table? A presentation about food and health by Rosalind

We either feed ourselves or kill ourselves with every bite we put into our bodies.

One of the major health concerns of our time is inflammatory processes-2 kinds:

Good-swelling (injury), white cells increase, body temperature raises, i.e., fever (disease)
Bad-when inflammatory attack comes at wrong time and place

Good Inflammation (Anti)

Bad Inflammation (Pro)
• Autoimmune diseases
• Heart disease
• Cancer
• Diabetes
• Altzheimer’s
• Prostate cancer

Prostaglandins
• Go into system to quell the danger
• Come from foods you eat, namely fatty acids, esp. Omega 3)
o Omega 3s
• Sardines (packed in olive oil)
• Herring
• Salmon (wild)
• Avocadoes

o Omega 6s
• Grains

We eat 25X more omega 6 foods than omega 3s because we eat so many more grains than leaves and grasses-also, our meat is grain fed so we get it there too.

Anti-inflammatory eating. Eat/drink more:

• Tomatoes
• Cayenne
• Turmeric
• Hot peppers/chiles
• Garlic
• Cardamom
• Cumin
• Onion flakes
• Brazil nuts esp. for men
• Ginger
• Nori
• Green tea
• Stevia (doesn’t raise blood glucose level) some recommend agave
• Flax seed and oil (but grind the seeds)

Drink less:

Caffeinated drinks

Alcohol (while healing)

Dr. can give a C-Reactive Protiein test that will indicate the amount of inflammation in body

Homework: Bring something from home that has high fructose corn syrup or -ose at the end of an ingredient name.

HFCS
_______________________________________________________________________

Update on Fall Festival:

3-4 hour event
Most likely at Evergreen-Tacoma
Sat. Oct. 13th
Next mtg. on July 16th
Discussing issues like, what will social justice angle look like, i.e., booths, music themes, etc. will we raise money for a purpose, such as scholarships?

The committee will work to make sure 2-way communication and input continues to occur

Happy 39th anniversary to Tom and Marti!

The V-Team met afterwards and tweaked the schedule of programming. View it here.

Conversation Recap for June 24, 2007

2007-07-01T14:06:00.001-07:00

We had a wonderful tribute program for Dr. Joye Hardiman that included music, a skit, singing, poetry, storytelling and open mic give-backs. We also were treated to some stories about Dr. Hardiman's life and career as well. A delicious brunch was prepared by our own Rosalind and a good time was had by all.